


Broken Crown

by Damned_Writers



Series: ... Soldier Spy [1]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst, Eggsy has to go to war, Eggsy is the gardener sort of, F/F, Harry is the king, I promise if I were going to kill Eggsy halfway through I would've tagged it major character death, I'm not as heartless as that, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, So much angst, Suicide Attempt, WW2!AU, a compilation of memories as they hope to see each other again, also post WW2, and some fluff, but without any real mentions of it, seriously everyone watch the youtube video, they write each other letters, ties in vaguely to the cold war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-02 06:28:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 44,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4049668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damned_Writers/pseuds/Damned_Writers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Does the king do what he wants, or does he do what the people expect him to do?”</p><p>Another letter arrived for him that day. He had asked the king when the war would be over. Not so directly of course. He had merely hinted that the sooner it was all bloody over with, the sooner they could forget this pause in who they really were, this stutter in humanity’s heartbeat, and return to good old earth and summer days and the occasional – common – rains. But rain was good. Rain cleansed the earth and made the flowers grow and the dirt hard and wet... Besides, on the days when it had rained, they had stayed inside from morning until evening.</p><p>(Roxy x Gazelle is a side-story included in one chapter. It’s not a part of the main story, but it IS a semi-introduction to something else that I’m writing for them)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Harry Hart is King George VI, but written as Harry Hart, aka no stammer, no wife, no kids. Elizabeth is next in line to the throne via being his cousin. I am mangling history, but things that I am keeping are:  
> 1\. Harry is not meant to be king. His older brother elopes with an American and he has to take over right before the war (here he is crowned in 1938, so also not historically correct)  
> 2\. The war begins Sep 1st, 1939 and ends Sep 2nd, 1945  
> 3\. The king is born Dec 14th, 1895
> 
> the age difference between Harry and Eggsy is 22 years. They meet in July, 1936
> 
> This entire thing is finished. However, I'm uploading a chapter a day.

 

 

_Based on[THIS](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D1HB1qYXsg) video and [THIS](http://www.harryeggsy.tumblr.com/post/119682033392/wwi-au-they-send-letters-of-course-as) gifset_

 

 

* * *

 

 

The stack of papers arrived every day. The letters barely once a month. There would be a date scribbled in the right hand corner telling him that he was alive four weeks ago. But he knew that already, because on that day his name wouldn’t have been in the papers. Not that he could read through them all anyway, nor should he, but he could check. Every day. And he kept a careful eye on his mother, should she receive news that he might not.

The letters brought something that the other papers did not. More than just name after name after name after name and they were all young men, just like him. They all bore his face and his face was covered in blood and he was spitting blood and his chest was a gaping hole.

The letters bore his face as well, but in those he was smiling – like in the days where the sun was shining (he described the weather as being " _g_ _od shitting in the bog of the earth”),_ in his loose shirts and waistcoats and braces hanging loosely around his knees ( _the uniform itches like a bastard_ , he wrote, _and there are fleas in them. And we march for hours and the rain makes them heavy and sweaty. Sodding things_ ).

He imagined him smiling while writing all his letters, even the very worst ones, where they were preparing for battle and it had rained for over a week and the mud mixed with the shit. He never phrased it quite as depressingly as that. He was far too optimistic for too much doom and gloom. But everybody knew what it looked like.

Mostly he wrote as though he was on an annoying holiday, with family he didn’t quite like and wasn't entirely sure how he was related to in the first place: _(I swear those Germans just need a talking to, and possibly a wake-up slap… some of the English do too, if I have to be honest, although I will name no names. Today we ate something with meat in it. While I must say I prefer meat to mush, I am not entirely sure as to what this particular meat was. Still, one does not complain when in need. Actually, we complain all the time. We complain about the weather and the food and the Germans and the French and the Russians and the English, I complain about you, although I never mention you by name. I think you’ll be pleased to know that I give you far too much praise as well: “lazy and entitled, but compassionate – as well as having the nicest arse I’ve ever seen. In fact, it more than makes up for your singing voice.” There, never let it be said that I sell you short. I miss you dearly. And I look forward until this dratted trip is finally done and over so that we can return to where we once were. In body, if not in mind. And at least we will be together again. By the way, I punched Digby in the face today. Poncy bastard. Luckily he's too much of a snob to admit what happened to our commanding officer or I'd be fucked. Still, I'm awaiting retribution. Pray for me)._

He would send letters back, when convenient. When he could bypass the advisors and the generals and the tailors, the politicians and the bloody butlers.

And he would never complain. Only “ _I miss you’s_ ” and _“I promise you’s_ “ and “ _I adore you’s_.” Silly and without meaning. Well, he reasoned with himself,  _of course_ he couldn’t divulge the secrets of the realm to him, no matter how much he wished to tell him that it wouldn’t be long now. He could come home soon.

No.

Better to just imagine him as he was when they first met: A Tuesday in July. One of those blessed days that made you forget that, most of the year, England was actually a wet, dreary old woman, who probably owned a disastrously large amount of parakeets and wore the memories of her glory days as excuses to not give a damn anymore. Today, however, she was beautiful. Warm and bright and with the smell of apples, because warm and bright days always brought the smell of apples with them for some reason. As though apples were somehow a prerequisite to summer days, or maybe lady summer herself just brought large bushels of them with her whenever she finally deigned to lower herself to visit those unpopular shores.

He had been strolling the grounds of one of his holiday mansions, and there had been no threat of war, no looming shadow of the throne, and no people around.

Except there was someone. “I say, you there…” the figure was lying in a patch of grass, overshadowed by an apple tree, and sprang up at his voice, standing as though prepared for a fight.

It irked him. “Are you aware that this is private property?”

The person – a young, tanned man bearing possibly the most disrespectful face he had ever encountered upon somebody that wasn’t his older brother – slumped into a casual stance, putting his hands in his pockets. If possible, this was even worse than being challenged. Now it was as though he wasn’t even worth putting up a fight for.

“Yeah,” said the man.

“It belongs to me, actually,” he continued. The man had the audacity to smirk.

“No it don’t, it belongs to the king. You ain’t the king, I’ve seen pictures. You’re far too young…” a pause in which he felt as though the core of his being was suddenly examined… “Also far too handsome.”

What to answer, except a dignified snort and a slight raise of his eyebrows. “I am the Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, and second in line to the throne. I think you’ll find that I _do_ own these grounds and am well within my rights to have you arrested for trespassing.”

At this, at least, the man appeared taken aback, but he quickly rallied himself into a… _somewhat_ … more dignified pose.

“Well, I’m the gardener,” he said, smiled, stopped smiling, smiled again, and then appeared to mentally shrug and keep it. It was an incredibly pretty smile. “Well, I help the gardener. Sometimes. Eggsy Unwin. So you ain’t gonna be king then? You wanna be?”

“I think it’s quite rude to ask about my personal business without knowing me,” he answered.

Eggsy’s smile morphed into the kind of grimace that suggested that he didn’t _really_ care, and was trying his best to show it, and simultaneously managed to appear very triumphant at being able to ruffle his feathers. “I can’t know you if you don’t tell me your name. I can hardly walk ‘round calling you Duke and Earl and whatsitstitles.”

Impossibly, while a tiny, shrinking part of him wanted to remind this young… _anarchist_ that “oh yes, he bloody well could,” most of him wanted to smile. He opened his mouth to reprimand him and was surprised when what came out instead was: “You may call me Harry Hart. Until I have you fired.”

Eggsy laughed. "I'll never call you anything else now, just so's you know."

And deep inside Harry Hart’s lungs and heart and stomach there grew a feeling that spread in tingles and waves to his fingertips and down to his toes. That feeling manifested itself into a single thought. And the thought was _… oh!_

 


	2. Roses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh gosh, I listened to The Theory Of Everything soundtrack while reading through this. I'm not saying you should do it, I'm saying that it was pretty perfect though.
> 
> Eggsy's POV

 

 The day awoke, groggy and vomiting clouds, and it smelt like it always did. By now everyone had probably lost the ability to actually properly smell anything at all, and while Eggsy was more than a little grateful for that, he was also afraid that maybe when he returned… maybe there wouldn’t be any scents left there anymore either. He certainly couldn’t _remember_ what it had smelt like in England, no matter how hard he tried. Apples, or some shit. Grass. Breezes. _Harry_. Okay, he knew how _he_ smelt,all he needed to do was rewind the clock and start with his fingertips: Harry's fingertips were… clean, on the first day.

*******

Eggsy had noticed those clean, polished nails and felt suddenly incredibly self-conscious, but he'd covered it up with enough casual flirting to turn the tables. Luckily it had seemed that the flirting had paid off. Not only had he not been fired (or arrested for treason of some sort), he'd been invited to dinner, right then and there, inside the manor itself. Harry had asked him to wait by a tiny side-door as he’d gone inside to tell all the servants that they could go down to the pub. And suddenly the entire space had been empty, but for the two of them and a nicely laid table. Eggsy had spent the entire evening wondering what the charming bastard had wanted from him, and realised that he'd be willing to give it all. At least, what he had to give.

At some point he’d been seated at a solitary grand piano, all alone in an empty, echoing room made of marble or some shit. He hadn’t watched Harry’s reactions to his playing, because this – for now – had been better even than dinner. The sounds so loud and soft, the keys so pliant, the melodies so easy beneath his clever fingers. Harry had told him afterwards that he wanted him to come back and play again. And Eggsy had continued to wonder.

At the end of it, standing outside the door again, Eggsy hadn't quite been able to contain himself. “So how about a kiss then? I've always wanted to kiss a prince.” Said flippantly and with a grin that had hinted at a lack of sincerity.

For a second he'd been sure that he'd gone too far. Harry had looked at him for the longest time, with the most indiscernible look, as though he were waiting for something. And then he had kissed him, moving fast enough that Eggsy hadn't been prepared, and pulling away again before he'd been able to enjoy it. Eggsy had pouted, aware that he'd looked like a sullen child and not caring. Harry had appeared amused, like the royal bugger he was. _Kissing people like that without a moment's thought as to how they might want it._

“Well, that was… short,” Eggsy had said, trying to picture what exactly that second of lips had felt like and failing.

Harry had smiled faintly. “I just wanted to be sure that you were being serious.” And he had kissed him again, and this time Eggsy had felt everything.

 *******

That time when Harry had helped him dig up weeds from the flowerbeds, there his hands had become covered in dirt, filthy. The cleanliness… how did clean hands smell? Dirt. Dirt he could figure out. After all, he was currently surrounded by dirt. But it was a different dirt from the dirt that had been there then.

That dirt had been filled with worms and insects and it had been soft and a little cool. There had been… roots… and the first layer had crumbled in _his_ hands, but the second had been firm and slippery, coating him softly and roughly, beneath the nails and in the whorls and whirls of his palms. Forgetting that he'd been covered in dirt, he’d attempted to wipe a smidge from the side of Eggsy’s cheek and only made it worse, and he’d drawn back and actually been apologetic – as if Eggsy wasn’t _always_ covered in some dirt or other – and Eggsy had drawn the palm back and laid it gently in place, inhaling deeply through his nose against the side of that large, soft hand. Now how had that smelled?

Or what about in bed? That had been… also firm, also slippery, and gentle, and rough, depending on when. The smell had been different though. There was an inherent difference in the smell of dirt and the smell of sex, he knew that, of course he knew that. He also knew that some of the other lads mucked about in secret when the officers weren’t around, but not him. Not here. Not with them. The smells would be all wrong.

 *******

Another letter arrived for him that day. It was in answer to his last question: He had asked the king when the war would be over. Not so directly of course. He had merely hinted that the sooner it was all bloody over with, the sooner they could forget this pause in who they really were, this stutter in humanity’s heartbeat, and return to good old earth and summer days and the occasional – common – rains. But rain was good. Rain cleansed the earth and made the flowers grow and the dirt hard and wet.

Besides, on the days when it had rained, they had stayed inside from morning until evening. The rushing sounds of the rain beating the grounds, and the un-rhythmical panting and moving, firm, slippery, gentle, rough, sounding like its own little harmony. While all he’d actually heard had been his own heart and Harry’s gasping and the throbbing of the tension in the air, and the violence of the rain outside, his mind had concocted symphonies with great sweeping movements of power, and tiny pulsating arias. He’d saved the pieces that worked for the piano, and concocted long ballads and tiny preludes.

Not now. Here, the rain was discord and disjointed. It was harder to write music here. It was all rather terrible. Still he took what he could get, and if the world was telling him it was terrible, then by god, he was going to write something terrifying.

The letter started with a “darling.” He smiled a little. However, the rest disappointed. How could a four-page letter be so vague in actually providing an answer? He picked up a piece of paper and scribbled: “Harry, is this fucking war going to end??? Soldiers want to know.” He destroyed that immediately and began again, regretting the waste of paper.

He began with “you charming bastard,” and ended in a “my sweet…” he considered prince, because it sounded equally sarcastic and romantic and he wanted Harry to appreciate his sense of humour. But no. if anybody else were to read it… and he’d sworn to be secretive, sworn to keep himself – and the crown – safe. “My sweetest Rose,” he wrote.

“Oh, yes,” he said aloud. Thinking back… palm, sweaty, dirty, faintly musky, placed against his cheek. And in his other hand the rose held towards him. Romantic idiot.

 *******

The rose had smelt like his lips had tasted. That’s how it had been. That's what Harry was. Harry was how he remembered home.

 *******

He finished the letter and was about to go and post it, when there was a whistling. A call to arms.

“Fuck.”

The letters were both placed beside the ones he had received. There were many “my darlings,” and “my dearests,” and a single one that lay at the top, as a promise to never forget him, or maybe a... a promise. That after the war something between them would be acknowledged, somehow: “My boy.”

He touched it once, for luck. His boy.


	3. Memories

The memories were all muddled together and Harry was having a difficult time sorting through them, even with the pre-war letters at hand. All that was clear was when they had first met… and the last time he had already been in uniform. He’d addressed him as “your majesty,” sarcastically and with just the hint of the twinkle in his eyes that had usually accompanied his smile.

 He looked back for a time where there had been nothing but him and Eggsy, retreating further and further into the past… _Merlin had approached him and mentioned calmly over an informal dinner how he had discredited a journalist who had been planning to write a story about–_ no, before that… _there had been the military processions, line after line of young men, none of them him but all of them him…_ and before that as well. After he had bought him the pretty clothes and before the fights and after he had come to the realisation that he was in love with him.

That memory… Eggsy lying in the grass, as though he was some ancient model or painters muse, posing without realizing (or maybe he knew exactly what he was doing, it was always so hard to tell), wearing cream trousers, an open vest, a crumpled white shirt.

Harry frowned, jokingly. “I just bought you those.”

Eggsy laughed. “That’s why I’m taking such good care of them. Come down here, we can take care of yours as well.”

And then everything somehow went wrong. “I have to go.”

Eggsy didn’t say anything for a while, or move and the air seemed to grow a little colder. “Alright.” His voice was unaffected, but his eyes were duller, as they were every time Harry left him. Every time possibly the last time.

Harry hesitated for a moment. “I don’t think it’s a good idea if you stay in my employment.”

“I…” Eggsy looked at the ground. “I understand.”

“I want you to move in.” The world righted itself again, for a brief moment.

“What?”

“I said, move in.” Harry repeated. “For a while. Who knows, I might be persuaded to let you stay.”

“Persuaded?” Eggsy jumped up, in a second transformed from Adonis to puppy. “Sounds like a challenge!” and, oh, did he love a challenge.

He rushed towards Harry, wrapping his arms around him, mouth suggestively grazing his ear. “So what do I have to do?”

Harry answered with a most ungentlemanly shrug. “Play the piano.”

Eggsy pouted and pulled back. “Well, you _know_ I can do that.”

“Did you want me to ask for the impossible?” asked Harry, amused and a little aroused. Something about that _thirst_ for everything that might be… _could_ … be… according to Eggsy, was appealing to him. Did he already have an idea of what would happen, during that memory? His brother, the crown, the war… or was it just before that, before he was even afraid? He couldn’t remember right now. Just the moment. The shining, glorious moment, that almost hurt to think about.

“I love the impossible,” beamed Eggsy and kissed him.

*******

Eggsy tramped through a depressing landscape of bombed out nothingness and charred corpses of trees. He was one of five, originally eight, but Rufus and Ward and Hughes had been the victims of a sudden enemy ambush, mowed down before any of them could react. Berkeley had almost been next, but Eggsy had feinted to the right and drawn the fire his way while the others killed the attackers. Eggsy had been grazed across the side of his head. A makeshift bandage now drooped over his eye and the bleeding wouldn’t quite cease. But they were almost home… Or, what counted as home, what counted as medical attention this far out. Eggsy clutched at his chest for a moment, touching a picture of his mother and sister that lay inside his breast-pocket – the only that he had with him.

*******

Michelle had a black eye. It had been a few days since Eggsy had been home – too caught up in Harry, and there she had stood and pretended that everything was normal and asked where he’d been.

“I gotta new job, mum. Means I might have to be gone a bit more...” he'd bit his lip, regretting leaving her alone already.

“Oh, that’s wonderful.”

In the corner there had been an empty space. It had been conspicuously empty for years, despite there not being much room at home. It had once held a piano – old, but well-kept, a relic from memories of his father. Dean had destroyed it shortly after Eggsy’s twelfth birthday when he’d come home drunk and found him playing. That had been the first time that Eggsy had seen his mother take a hit to the face for him.

“I’m gonna go sort it out mum, alright?”

“No, don’t Eggsy…it’s alright. Really.”

The baby had started to cry and she’d rushed to her, picking her up and shushing her. When she’d turned around, he’d already left.

He’d returned later, looking bloody and bruised and very self-satisfied. “S’alright now mum. They’ll go after me for a bit instead now. Leave you two alone.”

 *******

Eggsy frowned. No, that wasn’t the right memory to have right now. Just because he was bleeding all over his uniform, didn’t mean that he had to think about all the other times he’d had the shit kicked out of him. It was odd, how he attached all the bad memories to the wrong situations. He didn’t _need_ those right now and yet they kept on filling his head like tiny tumours, sprouting even smaller thoughts of things that had never happened, but were just as clear and terrifying. 

 _Harry had noticed something in his hair and had reached out gently to remove it and Eggsy had flinched away before he’d understood what had happened and Harry had hit him in the face -_ no, that wasn't… -  _Dean had threatened him with a carving knife and Eggsy had smiled at the thought of his newborn sister and she was dead –_ _NO! –_ _his father had left for the war and his mother had been crying and the three of them had been on a walk and Michelle had been lying face down and Eggsy had thought she was dead as well and…_

Eggsy stumbled and almost fell, but Berkeley caught him and helped him up again. He cast a worried glance at his forehead, but smiled bleakly when Eggsy noticed. “You look great.”

Eggsy snorted. “So does the view.”

Berkeley laughed and Eggsy had a moment in which to dwell on his last thoughts,.. _and Harry was dead, shot in the head._

 He frowned again and kept on walking, heart pumping the taste blood into his mouth.

 


	4. Scars

He’d thought that Eggsy had been proud of what his body looked like. Harry remembered how he flaunted his muscles and his arse through the tight trousers and loose shirts, winked at him from where he sometimes sprawled in a lazy pose on the grass, challenging him with his grin, well aware that Harry loved to watch the flex of muscles in his throat when he laughed and threw his head back, baring his throat enticingly.

*******

But first time that they had sex it had been dark and Eggsy had refused to let him turn on the lights.

There had been a catch in his voice that belied his casual insistence that he just wanted to try it like this. Harry had initially assumed that he’d been ashamed of wanting him, but had been quickly assured that this was not the case. “ _Fuck off, you’re gorgeous,”_ were the precise words if he remembered correctly.

Strange, thinking back now, how past dalliances had not been half as memorable as the one in the dark, all silhouettes and fumbling and  _feeling._ Eggsy hadn’t removed his own shirt, telling him it didn’t matter, and Harry might have argued, except they had already been kissing and frantically grinding against each other, and Harry’s chest was somehow already bare, and Eggsy’s hands had snuck their way under the top of his trousers and grabbed his arse, and so Harry gave in to those lips and fingers and the movement and moaned at a particularly clever flick of his tongue across the sensitive part of his throat.

Eggsy went down on his knees and mouthed and licked and sucked at the area just above the seam of his trousers, and brought his hands back to the front to pull them down, his mouth and tongue heading ever lower. From that position his face was half hidden in the shadows, but his eyes glinted as though there was a fire inside them, and if Harry kept staring he could just make out the curve of his nose, pressed against his skin, his shoulders that were visible just above his slightly-opened shirt. The outline of his arms, fingers and hands fluttering from his hips to his thighs to – _fuck!_ His soft, plump, already kiss-swollen lips enveloped him completely and then he shut his eyes and saw no more, other than the image of Eggsy inside his head. He trusted that the phantom on his knees before him was the beautiful boy from the day, and not some spectre that he had conjured in the night, out of loneliness or desperation perhaps.

Harry was pretty sure then, that the problem didn’t lie in Eggsy having any second doubts of his sexual preferences either, nor that he in any way found Harry himself unattractive.

A little later in the night, as they moved together and Eggsy sat in his lap, sucking a bruise into the skin on the side of his neck and whimpering and gasping and murmuring in his ear everything that he wanted Harry to do to him, while Harry’s fingers found purchase, digging into his arse-cheeks, it didn’t matter anymore why Eggsy didn’t want the lights on. _“Fuck, Harry, please just fuck me so I can feel you, want you all over me, want your fucking teeth, make me bleed.”_ While Harry might have pointed out that it would’ve been a lot easier to do this if Eggsy hadn’t been wearing a shirt, he also didn’t want the expletives to stop, nor did he want Eggsy moving like that to stop, and he probably wouldn’t have been able to formulate sentences beyond “ _god yes,”_ and _“fuck! Eggsy”_ and “ _you’re perfect_.”

He smelt his hair and his sweat and chased the droplets with his tongue, biting at his throat, trying to fulfil at least a part of Eggsy’s wishes. He was rewarded with a " _yes, Harry,"_ and the taste of sex and flesh. And Eggsy shuddered against him.

 

Later again they simply lay beside each other – Harry stroking Eggsy’s sweat-beaded hair and placing languid kisses on his shoulder. Eggsy yawned widely.

“Do you want to sleep?” Harry asked.

“Nah.” Eggsy turned towards him, slowly kissing at his collarbones, before heading down, frustratingly unhurried and sloppily nipping and caressing down his body. Harry watched him in the dark, the whiteness of the drenched shirt making him appear ever more ethereal and yet easier to see than if he hadn’t worn it. His hands, his lovely artistic hands, teased lower, on the inside of his thighs like he was taking his time on a slow piece of music that needed to be expertly touched and played with just the right amount of pressure. While Harry would have loved to have seen what those sweet fingers could do, he stopped him with a hand on the side of his cheek. Eggsy looked at him, confused. His eyes were bright and focused and eager.

“What do you want Eggsy?”

Eggsy bit his lip, appearing to be fighting with himself, not quite daring to look him in the eye. Then his face hardened into a nervous stubbornness. “Can you? Tell me what to do?”

He asked a little hesitantly, as though he wasn’t sure whether Harry liked it when his partner was so submissive. Harry, in turn, sat up, pulling Eggsy slightly towards him so that he was on his knees, bracketing Harry’s legs, arms wrapping around his shoulders.

Harry put his lips towards his ear, brushing them around the shell. “I’m going to tie your hands behind your back. Do you want me to do that?” Eggsy nodded enthusiastically.

Harry wasn’t sure how far Eggsy might be willing to go, and they took it oh-so-slowly, and did nothing more than that, wrists bound, knees bent, head pressed down in the pillow, gasping his name. Harry _loved_ to dominate him, this tiny bit. Loved to feel the tension and to grasp and stroke him, loved his strung out curses and blessings. And especially loved Eggsy's obvious and unabashed bliss at being so utterly safe and held, and Harry could feel and hear and smell and taste everything, and see only shadows.

Later they fell asleep in an exhausted tangle. Harry had kissed his wrists until Eggsy had yawned loudly and then he had covered him in himself and the duvet and Eggsy had fallen asleep immediately, curled into him as though he was all that protected him from everything outside this moment.

 

When Harry woke up the next morning, sunlight streaming into the room like a painting, all he saw was Eggsy. The light was kind to his features and made him seem statuesque, unreal, still asleep in the bed. It felt to Harry as though his presence proved that last night had been… real. The thought of it made his eyes crinkle into a tiny, fond smile. Eggsy lay half-covered by the duvet, arms spread about him like a ragdoll, and drooling ever so slightly where his head was turned against the pillow. Suddenly he frowned and muttered in his sleep and turned over on his stomach, rucking up his shirt in the process.

Harry’s face darkened when he saw his back, and he – ever-so-carefully – pulled his shirt back down, trying not to wake him. Then he leaned down and kissed the top of his head. He got up to make breakfast and left Eggsy to decide whether he wanted to get dressed before going out to him.

 

One day, much later, Eggsy let him see his scars.

******* 

Eggsy was having his head checked for any infection. According to the nurse, he probably needed the inside of it checked as well, for idiocy. “Never seen a man as lucky as you. How many times you been shot?”

“I object to that. There’s also been the barbed wire. Oh, and the knife as well.”

“You’re slowly beginning to look like a pretty picture.”

Eggsy grinned widely. “Scars are just good stories, darling.”

She hadn’t been amused. “You must have a lot of them then.”

“You have no idea.”

The scars on his back from cigarettes and belts, they hardly needed a longer tale. The tiny scar on the back of his head from having fallen off his tricycle at the age of three and banging it against a rock… there had – he had been told many a time – been a lot of blood and worried biscuit-eating while the doctor sewed him back together.

The scar on the underside of his foot from a piece of glass – he had knocked over a vase, accidentally. Harry hadn’t been annoyed and had, despite Eggsy’s panicked assurances that he would pay for a new one (as if he’d have the money if he worked his entire life), simply told him to clean up the mess. Eggsy had missed a rather large, sharp piece and stepped on it and that was when Harry had started to calmly panic.

The serrated mess that had been caused by the barbed wire on his arm from having rescued a fallen soldier who had become tangled in the accursed stuff after being shot in the leg on a retreat. He had rescued the man who had immediately been shipped back home, while Eggsy stayed and received recommendations, said to be “someone to watch.” Watch for what? Nobody was quite sure, but it was probably “watch you make more reckless decisions…”

Like when he had found a small, pitiful dog in the rubble of a ruined village, still crawling with enemies. He had named the dog JC (James Cagney) and it had licked his hand a couple of times, before growling pathetically and dragging at his sleeve. It had pulled him along to a bombed out building and begun to sniff at the rubble, yowling all the time. Eggsy had suddenly seen the foot sticking out and had hurriedly uncovered the child beneath it. She was alive and unharmed, five years old or so, blinking rapidly and speaking in terrified squeaks.

Eggsy had smiled warmly at her. “Sorry love, I only speak English.”

“English?” she had understood. Eggsy nodded.

“Yup. Now shall we get you out of this mess, huh?” He’d reached out his arms to carry her and she’d sprung into them and let him hold her, arms tight enough to bruise and frightened out of her wits. Eggsy continued to speak soothingly.

“Y’know, you’re ‘bout the same age as my sister. Missed her birthdays a couple of times now, but I’ve got leave in a few months and I’ll see her again. She’s got light hair though, not dark and curly like yours…”

The dog beside him had started to growl again and suddenly a knife had flashed across his vision. He’d held his hand out against the attack and dropped the girl and the knife was coming at him again when a loud _bang_ had had it clattering to the ground. It was the first time that he had shot a man point-blank. The girl hadn't said a word, or screamed, and the noise had drawn the nearest of his men to the area, saving him from any further attacks.

That time he’d been reprimanded, then praised, then reprimanded again, and then the platoon had adopted JC and he had been praised again and offered for promotion. Strange little world. He hadn't seen the little girl again.

*******

There were others to join the latest graze on his forehead from the unexpected bullet, probably would be more. But not all stories needed to be told, he thought.

He was actually quite fond of his body.


	5. Bullets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand the angst returns. But hey, we had a moment of relative happiness, we all knew it couldn't last.

The last letter that Harry ever received was sent from London. Eggsy was on leave and due to change groups – of course he couldn’t say where he was going next or who he would be with, but he’d been promoted and was therefore to return to official duty after only one night. “ _I guess getting an extra paycheck is worth only having a night off. And others have to call me “sir” now. Can you believe that?_

_I wanted to go home though, see my family, but they’ll understand._

_On the one hand I’m happy you’re not here. Everybody is incredibly pretty and you wouldn’t spare a second glance for another uniform – even if it’s washed and pressed and I look pretty damn good in it if I do say so myself. But there are so many bars here and clubs and places to get lost in. We might even be allowed to walk side by side, nobody’d see you if they’re being dazzled by your young soldier in a uniform worthy of the king’s interest, if he enjoyed a bit of rough in a good uniform that is._

_I predict a lot of good weather and sea-air in the next few months. I’m going to fucking die from the heat._ _Embarrassing way to be offed after being a war hero. I_ _suppose it’ll be a short trip though, hopefully. Then I can finally go back to freezing mainland, like any respectable European would want to. I have to go now, but I’ll send you the letter right before lift-off, so it’ll reach you pretty quickly for once. I’ll be home again after Christmas if I’m lucky, this time for longer. I miss you._

_Yours_

Churchill had argued that a final push against the Dodecanese Islands was prudent at this time. After all, the Italian mainland had already capitulated and the fight for the islands had been continuous for almost three months. Now was the time to strike.

Upon reading the letter, Harry deduced that he was headed there. He spent the next week scowling at the prime minister, pretending that if he just seethed hard enough the campaign would end quickly. Merlin asked him over dinner whether he might not want Churchill assassinated and he _very politely_ declined the offer.

Eggsy would be home again soon enough.

 *******

Michelle Unwin opened her letter with some trepidation. After all, this one had arrived at the wrong time, but it was from him. It could hardly be bad to receive _more_ news…

_I know I promised I’d be there for the birthday, but I’m not allowed to go home this time. Saving up some favours for my next leave though and I’ll definitely be home for a few days then._

_Say hi to the baby (guess she’s not a baby anymore). Tell her happy birthday from her very sorry big brother, who misses her a lot. I’ll be back soon. See you after Christmas._

Michelle sighed and packed the letter away with the others. A little later than expected, but he would be home soon. 

*******

Bullets didn’t sing. Eggsy knew singing. Knew his own voice, which wasn’t all that bad, knew Harry’s, which was terrible, knew some of the great stars that you heard on the radio, voices strong or soft or harsh or sad or everything you could imagine in emotions all jumbled up together, like a whirlwind, but with less destruction. Singing was not supposed to leave you in the dirt while people around you whimpered and cried in terror. That wasn’t singing, that was… a different sound. Hold up, reload, fire… okay singing… No, bullets. Ah yes. They sounded like… bullets?

Bullets sounded like bullets. Well, he couldn’t write _that_ in a poem.

They were stuck in a ditch, outnumbered and surrounded and everything around him was a blur of violent activity, as though the world didn’t exist, or was moving so much faster than him. His breathing was loud, louder even than the guns and explosions, and he was aware of the sweat that drenched through his heavy uniform and coated his slippery hands.

He stood again, ready to fire on some unknown mark in the distance, when one of the singing bullets hit him in the gut. He fell to the mud and for a second the world disappeared and he focused on... Harry.

He was sitting at the piano. _His_ grand piano. And Harry stood beside him. _His_ Harry, because nobody else in the entire world even knew that Harry existed. In all other worlds it was duke or your majesty or possibly George, but Harry only existed in that house.

“You should get a piano for your house, so that you can practice all the time,” Harry was saying. Eggsy smiled into the music, which slowly grew dimmer and dimmer, until Eggsy could hear nothing at all.

He played a silent tune and Harry sang along and he was pretty sure that it was flat and a little toneless, but he still couldn’t hear anything. Except for a low buzzing that suddenly started at the base of his neck. It grew louder, filling his body and his brain and forcing the image out of his head.

Then he heard the screaming and the sobbing and it was coming from his own throat, hoarse enough to saw at his vocal chords. Around him he was dimly aware of many others who sounded exactly the same, and somewhere a cacophony of whimpers and explosions that were causing his ears to ring, but didn't actually seem loud at all. His own screaming deafened him, until he could no longer cry out. And that was what bullets sounded like.

 ******* 

Eggsy’s father had fallen in the last war.

Michelle Unwin had married an abusive drunk – not much else to say about him, really – and mothered another child. Harry very clandestinely had the man executed after he’d seen what he had done to Eggsy.

It had started the first of many rows…

 

Eggsy had known from the start what had happened. He looked close to tears, or as though he wanted to punch him. "My mum's crying," he said, bluntly.

"She shouldn't be," answered Harry, because she fucking _shouldn't be._ She was free now, so was Eggsy.

Eggsy's face hardened and he started to shout. “You don’t get a say in what we should or shouldn't do. You don't fucking _own_ me! Or my family! What, you think we’re looking for your pity, _or_ your help? What about everyone else, huh? You gonna save every family, one by one, no…?” Eggsy’s voice fell to a cold, sullen mutter. “What do you want from me now?”

Harry was at a loss, for once. “You didn’t complain about the house, or the clothes, or the piano.”

“You stay _away_ from my family!”

He realized then, that Eggsy was afraid of him. Of what he could do. Of how _I love you,_ and _I’ll fight for you_ somehow had turned into _I own you._

“I’m trying to help you. Can’t you see everything I’m doing is for you.”

Eggsy paced like a trapped animal. “I ain’t like you. I don’t have much and it’s like you’re some delusional rich prick who can buy whatever it’s I got left. You _killed_ someone Harry. You can’t just _do that_ like it’s easy, or some.. _._ favour! And what about my mum, she’s not… she… it’s none of your fucking business.”

“Your mother, your sister, they can live here, surely?”

Eggsy shook his head. “This isn’t… I can’t do this. I’ve gotta go home.”

Harry nodded, devastated. “If that’s what you want.”

A week later, Eggsy returned, a healing split lip and bruises on his arms and face. He crawled over the wall and into their bed, where Harry found him a few days later when business had called him back to those parts and he’d wandered in out of habit. He didn’t ask who he’d fought.

Eggsy talked about how his father had fallen in the last war and Michelle Unwin hadn’t coped. And Gary “Eggsy” Unwin… well, he had fallen in love with the future king, because maybe he’d inherited a drop of the self-destructiveness that his parents had.

It wasn’t a perfect moment, not really. Despite the admission of love, it was a bitter reunion and a confession that sounded more like he hated than loved to say “I love you.”

Harry understood. “I love you,” he said back, and because of the hopeful way that Eggsy looked at him, despite knowing that he would have to disappoint him again, the moment became a little better.

 

The battle of Leros had been a catastrophe, destabilizing the entire Dodecanese campaign. The king read paper after paper after paper after name after name after name and there…

Eggsy’s father had fallen in the last war.

Eggsy had fallen in this one.

 *******

One day, a long time ago, Harry and Eggsy took a walk. They had started by exploring the grounds and then casually exited via a small door, hidden like the beginning of an adventure story, and then they had wandered down a muddy path and over a cow-infested field. It had begun to rain and by the time they reached the forest on the other side of the field, the both of them were soaked with rain and sweat.

The trees covered them from the worst of the deluge and they took the time to sit underneath a large pinetree.

“Well, what was the end to your perfect idea?” asked Harry.

“Huh? Does everything need to have an end? I just wanna enjoy it right now.” Eggsy laid his head back against the tree and shut his eyes.

Harry watched him, battling the urge to argue.

Eggsy snorted anyway. “Alrigh’, I know, I know. When you’ve got duties it’s different. No duties now though.”

Harry took his hand and held it, studying the rough callouses and perpetually dirty fingernails. “I’ve got a duty now,” said Harry. “To you.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm,” he continued to study them, then moved his gaze up to look at his face. Eggsy’s eyes were open now, watching him in turn, waiting for something. A promise.

“My boy,” he said.

Eggsy closed his eyes again, content. That was a promise to hold to. “Yours,” he mumbled.

Two months later Harry was crowned king.

 *******

Another time, much later, Eggsy very obstinately called him “your majesty” for an entire day to mock him. Eventually it annoyed him so much that he snapped “well, if I am your _king_ , you have to do exactly what I say from now on.”

Eggsy’s eyes twinkled with triumph. “That’s all I wanted.”

“Then get undressed and lie down on the bed. And be quiet,” he added.

Eggsy dutifully obliged, visibly biting his cheeks around every remark that was trying to flee his mouth. It was slow and his eyes possibly said more than his mouth ever could. They were filthy. And then he was lying naked over the duvet, supported by his elbows, watching and waiting as Harry decided his next move.

“From now on, every time I give you an order, you answer with “yes, your majesty.” Is that understood?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

It was the only time that the words had sounded welcome to his ears.

******* 

Another time… the piano played and it was as though all Eggsy needed to do was look at it and it would obey him, Harry not capable of doing anything but stare at his face, fiercely concentrated, lost in another world, in whatever it was he saw when he played…

*******

 Another time… they listened to the radio together and Harry taught him how to dance the waltz, and then the tango, and then to jazz and blues, Eggsy falling over his feet precisely twice before he got every different kind of step, a fast learner in everything he chose to do…

******* 

Another time…

*******

Harry sat on the magnificently carpeted floor of his office, his palace, his country, and sobbed.

******* 

_It is my painful duty to inform you that a report has this day been received from the War Office notifying the death of…_

Michelle worked hard for a living, wearing down her being and her soul and her body until she was much smaller than who she had been before 1917.

She had received a letter from her husband every month, dated four weeks before, telling her that he was alive a month ago. He had come home a few times on leave, each time looking more ragged than the last. On one particular day, she had received two, one dated a month ago, one a few days old. The first had assured her that he was alive and well, the second that he was dead.

She had lived on for a few years, past the end of the war, past rations, past scraps and selling everything of worth. Until one day she could no longer live, not even for her son. Eggsy had found her though and saved her life. She had survived.

So she knew what it meant when you received two letters. She opened neither this time and went for a walk with her daughter that somehow ended up as a daytrip to London. She spent even more money on an icecream, and told her stories about London and bombed out buildings and what they had once been – inventing colourful histories of dead queens and ghosts that were probably close to the truth. At the back of her mind the thought niggled that she would have to earn back everything for today with a month of begging her neighbours for scraps, but she smiled when the little girl excitedly pulled her to see Buckingham Palace, eyes twinkling.

This time she reminded herself why she was going to stay alive.

 

 


	6. Lancelot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay everybody. So this chapter was not originally intended for this story BUT upon editing I realised that the ending ties in very nicely with what’s happening with Eggsy and Harry, and I wanted to post it here as an introduction to Roxy’s story, which takes place during WW2/The Cold War and is a part of this verse – it will be a parallel story that I’ll post completely when I’m done writing it.  
> I’m saying that you CAN skip this chapter, if you don’t want to read about Roxy and Gazelle, but… why would you want to? It’s Roxy and Gazelle.  
> (Note that the tone of this chapter is quite different to that of the main story, far more spy-drama/action, a little less heart-wrenching war-drama. Have fun).
> 
> EDIT: I'm a an idiot who uploaded the unedited version. Me = idiot.

 

Roxy vaulted over a wall and clambered across to another well-lit, narrow street.

“Damn.”

She began to run again, hearing nothing behind her, no sirens or cars or footsteps. However, she could not rid herself of the sensation that they were closing in on her.

Where the hell was it? All of these streets looked exactly the same. Perhaps it really was a trap, as Percival had argued, in which case she was fucked.

She was incredibly relieved that she had decided against a skirt for today. Dressing up as the boys was not uncommon for her to do while on the job, and she enjoyed the well-tailored trousers and the dashing jackets as much as she loved the skirts and the bright red lipstick. She counted herself lucky for all the perks that came with this job.

Some of the cons were less savoury, such as wondering whether she was about to be shot or arrested for spying at any given moment, but she knew that it was worth the risk. It was also quite fun, if she had to be completely honest, something she wasn’t about to be in front of Merlin or Percival. Bloody mother hens.

Ah, there was a sign.

Roxy knew where she was now, not far from the Hot Club. The café should be just around the corner. Hell of a place to meet, she thought. Might as well paint bullseyes on the backs of our heads and declare ourselves as anti-fascist pigs lining up for a slaughter.

She walked respectfully, smoothing her trousers and touching her hat for signs of any of her perfectly shaped hair peeking out from beneath it. She had spent time on her hair, she wanted it to look nice when she removed the hat again. Her breathing calmed and when a man touched his hat and murmured a “ _bonsoir”_ she smiled at him, for all the world appearing to be a young man out on an evening stroll in a dangerous city.

The café was lit by lights that didn’t quite spill out onto the street, lending it the kind of mysterious air that had most passer-by’s avoiding it as though it were the meeting place for resistance-jazz-loving-spies. They would be quite right.

She entered and there was a small clinking of the bell. There was one table set for two, and a lithe, powerful figure uncoiled from where it had been sitting gracefully on one of the chairs. Gazelle. Her contact.

Roxy found her gaze locked onto the metal swords that the woman had for legs. That had been in the files, but she had hardly believed it. Yet there they were, sheathed for now so that Gazelle was balancing on elegantly curved metal feet, but the blades could be seen, sharp enough to glint wickedly at her.

She looked up to see her face.

It was as the picture of her had been, although more so. Where her picture had given off the sensation that she could kill you with just a look, her entire being spoke of having been able to kill you without you even noticing that she was there until you were already cut to pieces.

Django Reinhardt played softly in a corner, nazi-approved semi-jazz. Gazelle’s eyes watched her as though she was prey. Roxy scowled back as impressively, and the café had the feeling as though it were about to explode. And then the moment passed and Roxy held out her hand. Gazelle shook it, and their faces withdrew into cautiously respectful looks.

Their claws retracted, but were not far out of reach.

“Sit,” Gazelle suggested and she pulled out the other chair for Roxy. She had already scanned the entire room for exits and traps and seen nothing out of the ordinary, but she wondered where the proprietor of the café was, and her wariness bubbled behind her gracious smile and her polite “thank you.”

“You’re late,” said Gazelle, sitting as well. She spoke with a superior French lilt.

“I was caught in the middle of a raid. A lot of arrests. I only just slipped away.” Roxy watched her face carefully, searching for signs of her having known.

“Oh, did you?” There was nothing in her that spoke of any involvement.

“Yes. There’s nobody following me.”

“I believe you. You look…” her eyes travelled appreciatively up and down. “… professional.”

Roxy could not help but be intrigued by the woman sitting opposite. She had, according to the research that they had done on her, been working undercover in Algeria for years after her father had been arrested for anti-nazi propaganda. Her mother had been killed during the allied liberation, so she’d left the country and was posted in France now, an official agent of the American government. She was a trusted resource to the allied armies.

And yet… there were holes in her records. Mysterious disappearances and phonecalls, odd pieces of information that did not coincide with her official reports. It appeared that the Americans did not care much, provided that she continued to be an asset.

Roxy wondered how and when she had lost her legs. And how and when she had gotten them back.

The call had come for them a few weeks earlier. That a certain _benefactor_ of the British Empire wished to offer information. Information… on the Germans, the Vichy-French? No. On the Americans. For the right price. Location, agent, time, everything was set. Lancelot had already been placed in France for a previous mission and had therefore been the natural candidate to send.

Percival had been very worried, but then again, he always was about his niece. Now however, Roxy wondered what exactly this was. Gazelle’s face betrayed nothing – except perhaps an amount of attraction. Roxy was not sure how much her own interest was showing, and shoved it down, beneath her impatience and suspicion. Maybe Gazelle had seen though, her hand now lay on the table, her dangerous lips widening slightly into a suggestive smile that disappeared quickly, leaving Roxy uncertain as to its initial existence.

“This could have been done far better during the day, don’t you think?” Roxy said, folding her legs. Gazelle’s foot clicked against the floor and Roxy was reminded – this woman could kill her without drawing a weapon or lifting a finger.

Gazelle smiled almost imperceptibly, sharing a small joke with herself. “My… handlers are watching me. All of them.”

Roxy’s fingers twitched. “Who are you working for?” she asked.

“As of this moment, almost everyone. That is, if the British choose to take the information.”

“What is it?”

Gazelle’s eyes sharpened ever so slightly, knives drawn but not threatening her yet. “Not here. This is just a negotiation, do you understand?”

“And who would I be negotiating with?” Roxy kept her eyes firmly fixed on her face, but she could sense those legs out of the corner of her gaze.

“Are you worried that you’re getting in bed with the Germans?” She leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table. From the outside the two would have appeared deeply intimate, possibly lovers sharing a night together. “They can be quite… giving bed-fellows, if you let them.”

“I’d rather not touch the devil if I can help it,” said Roxy.

Gazelle leaned back again. “And yet here you are. Questioning your morals?”

“Not if you tell me who I’m sleeping with.”

And now the smile turned predatory again. “Why, with me. I’m an independent contractor, which means that anything… dirty… doesn’t need to touch your lovely skin.” Neither spoke for a second, the nightlife holding it’s breath, Django ceasing his playing for a moment, as Roxy waited. Something was about to happen. But then Gazelle let the moment pass – whatever it had just been – and her face returned to a professional neutrality. The next song began to play. “Today you will be dealing with my private investor. He’s very interested in keeping all parties of the war informed on their allies going-ons. For honesty’s sake. After all, all good relationships are based on trust.”

“Tell me his name.”

“Why?”

“For this relationship to work, we need to be honest with one another. Because I don’t trust you. Or your motives.”

Gazelle stiffened a little, not letting the movement reach her face, which remained the same. “That’s not very nice. I’m here to help you.”

“Did you lure me here to kill me?” Roxy was tired now, of what this was going to be. If he could hear her, Merlin would have died just so that he could roll over in his grave at her lack of subtlety. She didn’t care much.

Gazelle’s posture was changing gradually, ready to pounce. “Did you come here to kill _me_?” she asked, just as fiercely. “I know that you’ve been reading about me, wondering who exactly I am right now. Who I’m loyal to. I can tell you right now that I’m loyal to no _nation,”_ she spat the word. “I wouldn’t give a fuck if you all tore each other apart. Luckily, my employer shares the same ideals, if for different reasons. That doesn’t mean that my information isn’t good.”

There it was. The final offer.

“I think you know now that you’ve met me that this isn’t going to work,” whispered Roxy, and pulled a gun from inside her jacket, pointing it squarely in her face. “Tell me who you’re working for.”

Gazelle snarled, and she lunged just as Roxy fired, dodging the bullet faster than Roxy’s decision to fire it. She gripped the gun, meaning to tear it from her hands, but Roxy held onto it and used the momentum to pull herself forward and smack her head into Gazelle’s nose, sending her head careening back. Gazelle was bleeding from her nose now, and furious, and she had somehow managed to keep a hold of Roxy’s arm, twisting it around so that Roxy was forced to drop the gun and then standing, pushing her chair away, as Roxy did the same and wrenched herself from her grasp.

The two stood either side of the tiny table, Gazelle with blood on her face, Roxy with a wrist that felt as though it might be sprained. The gun lay on the floor between them, but neither spared it a glance.

The two attacked at the exact same time, as though it was choreographed, throwing the table to the side as Roxy deflected and ducked around Gazelle’s deadly legs, trying to find a chance to move from defence to offence. Gazelle was fast and powerful, weaving and springing in and out of movements, her arms just as vicious as her legs. She was like a panther.

But Roxy was a war-machine. Taking in every movement that Gazelle would make, categorising every flaw in her impulsive attacks, deducing exactly when to go from shield to a sudden, brutal full-frontal attack that sent her opponent reeling into a mirror on the wall, smashing it to bits.

Gazelle almost roared and attacked again, spinning her leg towards Roxy’s throat. At the same time, Roxy clicked her heels together and aimed a kick at her in turn, Gazelle spotted the tiny blade that was headed towards her, and stopped, the tip of her sword just nicking the skin. Roxy ceased her attack as well.

“This blade is coated in one of the fastest acting neurotoxins in the world. You won’t last long.” There was some implied advice in her sentence to lower her weapon, but the both of them stood for a few seconds, staring at one another’s eyes, the battle continuing within them with as much ferocity as before.

They slowly came to the conclusion that the most likely scenario would be the both of their bodies being found by the gestapo in the morning, and lowered their legs again.

They were close enough to feel each other’s panting breaths, to see the sweat on their faces. At some point during the fight, Roxy had lost her hat and her perfect hair had fallen into disarray.

She took a few steps back. “Don’t renew your offer to us. The next time I won’t be coming alone.”

Gazelle took a step forward, challenging her again, but Roxy didn’t move. At this distance, Roxy knew a dozen ways that she would win this fight.

But then Gazelle leaned in, not fast enough that Roxy didn’t somewhere know exactly what was about to happen, and kissed her. Roxy immediately responded with anger, keeping their lips together, but biting down on Gazelle. She put her hands on her shoulders and pushed her against the glassless mirror, accidentally cutting her fingers on the few shards that still clung optimistically to the frame.

Gazelle growled into her and yanked at her hair, causing her to whimper involuntarily, but then renew her attack, viciously refusing to enjoy the pleasure of those soft lips and that encouraging tongue, but accidentally making the situation more exciting by adding the pain.

The both of them could now hear the sirens that were headed their way and it broke the sudden forgetfulness of where they were and whom they were with. Roxy pulled back, not able to tear her eyes away from the blood on Gazelle’s face, the bitten lips, the overwhelming dark eyes.

Roxy wanted to say something, but the noises were getting closer. There had been a gunshot after all, she thought. Of course the police had been called. She turned and left, and the last song finished playing, leaving only the mounting sounds of the night outside.

 

Roxy walked down the street at a brisk walk, aware that her cover was two seconds from being blown. Something about Gazelle… it had become personal. Her job had never been personal before. Perhaps it had been the fact that she had been tempted by her offer. It had not been bad and discovering dirt on the Americans was a noble endeavour, but at what cost? And Gazelle herself was… also tempting. Thank God she wouldn’t be seeing her again.

All of a sudden there was the sound of running footsteps behind her. She continued to walk as though nothing was the matter. Perhaps they weren’t meant for her.

“Halt! Stehen Bleiben!”

If it was a German, it was probably gestapo. She could kill gestapo without any qualms. All of a sudden she remembered her gun, left at the café behind her. Damn. She turned slowly, raising her arms and wondering if she could get close enough to disarm the man.

He looked triumphantly at her for a few seconds and then there was a loud _bang_ and Roxy dropped to the ground, immediately checking herself for bullet wounds. Nothing.

Meanwhile his smile had faltered and he keeled over, sprawled on the cobbles. Blood bubbled from the corner of his mouth and dripped between the stones.

Gazelle stood a little behind him, and lowered the smoking gun. She was wearing a long fur overcoat that covered her legs completely, and she walked calmly to where Roxy was brushing herself off. In her other hand she held her hat. A black handbag swung from her arm. She looked like a hunter, prowling the night. Lethal. Stunning.

Roxy waited for her and gestured towards the nearest alleyway. The sirens were all around them by now. They both ran through it and expertly scaled another wall at the end, putting a distance between them and the scene of the crime.

Gazelle wordlessly handed Roxy both of her unprofessionally forgotten items, which were received with a small thank you in her eyes. She returned the gun to its holster and unceremoniously put on the hat, before turning to walk away.

This time an actual goodbye.

But then Gazelle yanked her back and she spun around to look at the slightly taller woman again, waiting. In-fucking-toxicated at the sight of her. Fuck.

“Your hair,” said Gazelle. “Let me.” She began to hide the errant strands, then proceeded to smooth over her jacket, returning Roxy to a nondescript gentleman in a suit. There were noises all about them, growing closer again, and as Gazelle was finishing, a group of men in uniforms suddenly passed them by.

Roxy immediately pulled Gazelle in for a kiss, turning her so that she had her back against the wall. Roxy was in control this time.

It was not angry or brutal this time, but slow, leisurely, tasting. Whether anybody turned to see the couple or not didn’t matter as such.

Roxy sucked at Gazelle’s tongue, idly sipping at the tiny moans against her lips until the moment passed and they parted.

Gazelle was smiling. Roxy could not tell if it was mocking or not. “This could be a wonderful partnership.”

Roxy frowned. “You’re a terrorist.”

“I’m a vigilante. I’m avenging my family.”

She didn’t answer. But she didn’t walk away either.

Gazelle waited for a few seconds. “Where are you staying?”

“I’m not taking you there,” said Roxy. “Where are you staying?”

Gazelle clearly wasn’t about to tell her either. “We’ll go to The Savoy. It’s close.”

“Okay then.” The decision sweetened the Parisian air, and Gazelle linked her arm around Roxy’s, the two walking down the street as though they actually belonged together.

 

They received looks, the both of them. Admiring, a little disgusted, because everybody knew what “we need a room for the night” meant, and both parties – the young man and the elegant woman – were exceedingly attractive and clearly rich to afford to make their dalliance here. Possibly the woman was unhappily married and the man was her lover, probably the husband had similar proclivities, maybe she was even a famous actress!

The two said nothing on their way up to the room, Roxy keeping her head down so that the liftboy couldn’t see her face, just in case.

They tipped him and walked to their room, still not speaking, and Roxy unlocked the door to let the both of them in. A “Do Not Disturb” sign was hung on the doorknob.

The door shut behind them with a definitive click, and they both began to remove their clothes, not moving any faster than before, and neither betraying any nervousness. They wouldn’t give the other the satisfaction of being vulnerable. They looked at each other, mapping every piece of skin and movement that was being revealed before them.

Roxy’s hair fell in a soft tangle, Gazelle removed a long pin from hers and allowed it to do likewise, Roxy worked at the three buttons of her jacket, Gazelle removed her coat, dropping it to the floor. Roxy removed her gun from its holster and placed it out of the way, pulled down her braces, slowly undid her tie, and then continued with her shirt. Gazelle’s dress joined the messy heap, and she left it behind her as she began to stalk towards the other, now only wearing her attractive lingerie. She placed gentle fingers over Roxy’s and helped her to unbutton the rest of the shirt, while pushing her towards the bed.

They watched each other, fiercely promising to win this next challenge, but neither attacking just yet. The impossible slowness of their actions were in and of themselves tiny battles, each trying to tempt the other into making the first move, neither capitulating.

And at the same time, like a silent agreement, they began to kiss each other. Roxy’s shirt was removed and Gazelle’s fingers moved to her trousers. It was the calm before their storm.

Roxy’s hands unhooked her bra, while Gazelle pushed her trousers and underwear down around her knees, and then shoved her against the bed, sending her sprawling. Roxy raised herself on her elbows to see Gazelle get onto her knees, the danger of her legs invisible behind her and Roxy understood that this – while not an abject surrender – was definitely more play than outright war.

Gazelle shrugged off her bra, throwing it carelessly behind her, and then pulled Roxy’s underwear down the rest of the way, Roxy letting herself not move for the moment, too utterly lost in the woman before her, in the smoothness of her long fingers grazing her knees, moving up and up and up, in the mischievousness of her eyes, the suggestiveness of her smile.

Gazelle kissed the inside of her thigh, and her fingernails dug into her hips, making her hiss, but she bit her cheeks and refused to say more. Gazelle looked up suddenly, hearing the cut-off breath, and Roxy raised an eyebrow.

“What is it you want to do?” asked Roxy, breaking their silence for the first time.

Gazelle fingers took her by surprise and she gasped, clenching at the bedsheets. “I want to hear you scream. Can you do that for me?”

Roxy, trembling from the continued touching, trying hard not to moan whenever Gazelle hit a particularly sensitive spot, grinned widely. "Make me,” she panted.

Gazelle was a perfectionist, and impulsive, and it didn’t take long for her viciousness to break through the surface, and Roxy complimented her beautifully, matching every move, rolling her hips, pulling her hair, sliding their lips together and making a promise to herself that she wasn’t the only one who was going to come undone.

When she pulled Gazelle onto the bed, she accidentally cut herself on one of her legs, and Gazelle stared at where the blood slipped downwards across her foot, dripping onto the floor, before she reached down and removed both of them, carefully placing them on the floor behind her. She took a hold of Roxy’s leg and slid her tongue from the cut and along the blood trail, sucking at her toes where the blood had pooled in the cracks between them.

Roxy let Gazelle taste her, knowing that she was letting every part of herself, inside and out, open up to what she wanted, and that Gazelle – by removing her legs – was offering the same. The thought itself made her inhale sharply, and she wrapped her legs around Gazelle’s waist and flipped them over so that she was now on top. She gripped her arms, holding them above her head and kissed her lips violently. This time Gazelle bit her back.

Roxy let go of her arms and began to slide down her body, sucking at her throat, her breasts, her stomach, Gazelle taking a firm hold of her hair and controlling the speed of the downward movement. Roxy, never to be controlled for long, went faster, relishing the pull and countering the pain with sharp bites on her hips, making her shake and groan and pant. She gripped the top of her panties with her teeth and pulled them down, skimming across her, teasing to the best of her ability. Gazelle was trying her very hardest to force Roxy’s mouth to her, but Roxy was strong, and looked up with a mocking smile that promised far more torment.

Gazelle groaned – this time in annoyance. Although not in defeat.

Roxy did scream, eventually, under Gazelle’s clever body. And true to her promise, she made sure that Gazelle did too.

After a while of lying still and catching their breath, both of them admitted that the other had _some_ talent, and the taunting turned into another contest, Gazelle whispering in Roxy’s ear “ _I’m going to caress you so softly that you’re going to beg me never to stop touching you,”_ Roxy later returning the favour with hard, unforgiving movements and a growl of “ _you’re going to remember my hands, my skin, my mouth for years.”_

Gazelle managed to moan “ _forever darling.”_

They both fell asleep in an exhausted tangle, hair dishevelled and matted, sweat and spit, dried blood and bruises on their bodies.

They slept until late morning, before Roxy awoke to Gazelle putting her legs back on. She immediately got up, ignoring the aches in her body, and began to root around for her scattered clothing. The both of them respectfully paid no attention to the other until they were both dressed, armour back in place. Then they looked at one another again, silently deducing where they stood.

As one they moved, Roxy drawing her gun again, and Gazelle poised to spring. Roxy was faster. Gazelle’s eyes were dark with rage. “Where are the files?” Roxy said.

Gazelle was surprised. “You want them after all? I thought you didn’t want to get your hands dirty.”

“I’ve already gotten into bed with you… may as well make it official.” Roxy’s voice was cold, unwavering, unfeeling.

“And you’re expecting me to tell you who’s giving them to you?” asked Gazelle. “Because I won’t.”

Roxy shook her head. “I’ll find out soon enough. And what with us exchanging information, I expect we’ll see each other again.”

“You have a lot of faith in us, don’t you… what is to stop me from killing you and delivering the files with your body?” Gazelle’s voice dropped to a promise. Playtime was over, sadly.

“If I win, you’ll tell me where they are?” suggested Roxy.

Gazelle ran at her immediately, and Roxy, having learned from the previous evening, dropped the gun and avoided her attack, grazing her arm with a spinning kick, evading her blade again, only to catch a punch to the face that sent her sprawling. She immediately stood again, smiling.

“I win,” she said.

Gazelle looked at where she had been hit, at a thin cut. She smiled, sadly. “It’s not the worst way to die,” she admitted. “The files are in my purse. Did you think that I would leave them alone for anyone to find?”

Roxy backed away towards where the purse had been thrown. A dying tiger was still a tiger. Gazelle grimaced in pain as the poison ran through her system and suddenly she fell back and didn’t move.

Roxy looked at the prone figure in the floor. All she would need to do was go into the lobby and call an extraction team, Gazelle would be in an English interrogation room within a day. All the information that she had… she would never give it up, Roxy knew. She had another choice. Kill her now. Stop the fountain of information that she carelessly distributed between warring countries and – if she had her way – soon to be warring countries.

Roxy picked her up and put her in the bed, covering her with the duvet.

Then she went into the bathroom and filled a glass with water, placing it on the table beside the bed. She looked through her bag for the files and found a case of headache pills, putting them beside the water. When Gazelle woke up she would have a migraine for quite some time, but maybe that would alleviate it a little.

Roxy picked up the folders and walked away, leaving the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, and not looking back.

 

She walked downstairs and called her handler, a Ms. Anjali Kahn and four hours later she landed on English soil. It was amazing, she always felt, how easy it was to smuggle her in and out of occupied Europe, while so many others were stopped at borders and arrested or turned back, or drowned in their bombed get-away ships.

Anjali was waiting for her and they embraced briefly before Roxy was led to a hangar and asked to give a report.

“How did it go?” asked Anjali, with an expression that completely belied noticing the bruises and cuts on Roxy’s face.

“She’s a lady-killer,” answered Roxy, before handing her the files. “There’s somebody that we need to investigate. American billionaire. I didn’t get his name, but I will. It seems he has his own plans for when this war will end.”

Anjali took them, flickering through and not betraying anything. Roxy saw only one word. _Atomic._

“It seems he does,” said Anjali. “Gazelle is working for him?” She did not ask why she was still alive. Roxy was relieved.

“With him, I think. She’s no mere foot-soldier. She’s…” she suddenly remembered those fingers, that skin, the softness of her lips, the taste of her body, and blushed without meaning to. Anjali did not appear to notice. “She’s clever. I believe that the two merely found some common ground in the annihilation of the human race. An interesting friendship – or partnership… I couldn’t quite tell. She’s protective of him though.”

Anjali nodded. “Good work, Lancelot.” Her face softened slightly, apologetically. “I’m very sorry, but…”

Roxy sighed. “This is about my leave, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid that this one… it’s off the books.”

Roxy was intrigued now. “Oh?”

“Arthur doesn’t know about it. Just you and me and Merlin. It stays that way.”

“Of course. May I ask why?”

“I don’t know, but it seems… personal. To Merlin. He wouldn’t do this for anybody less than the king. And I don’t know if the king knows either.” Anjali appeared troubled for the first time since Roxy had known her.

“Understood.”

“You’re to make an investigation into the Dodecanese Campaign. Specifically, you’re going to attempt to find somebody who was involved in it, presumed dead.”

Roxy said nothing as Anjali handed her a file. A soldier. Good record, several promotions, loyal, declared dead in action. None of what she read sprang from the page as distinguishing him from countless others who had given their lives in the last few years.

He looked kind on his picture, she noted.

“I’ll find him, if he’s alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, I love it when history comes together. I think I’m going to post a definitive timeline of certain war-events that tie in to this story, so that everyone knows what actually happened and what I’m inventing, but not until we're all done.
> 
> Just for this chapter though: In terms of Gazelle being Algierian-French (and a spy), she would have had a very intimate relationship to both the axis and the allied forces, making her all the more a mysterious character.  
> Do Gazelle's and Valentine's plans involve a nuclear war between America and Russia, on top of their involvement in selling wartime information to desperate countries? I mean, Gazelle is already working for the Germans, the French, and the Americans, and it won't take a lot for the English to want to get a hold of her (if they don't already). I wouldn’t be surprised if Valentine and her had plans with the Russians. Gosh I love spies.
> 
> Last thing. Hot Club was a thing. A thing in which jazz was played and Django Rhinehardt tried not to piss of the nazi's too much, along with his quintet. They failed. In 1943 certain things happened and due to the nature of this timeline (aka. The Hot Club was raided in October and Eggsy was in the battle of Leros on the 14-16 of November), the area just around it would have been crawling with antsy nazis and nazi-sympathisers. Talk about Gazelle being attracted to a little danger.
> 
> Also, on Sofia Boutella (the actress of Gazelle). Her father is a famous Algerian jazz player. I thought that that piece of information was too good to pass up on, seeing as in the 40s jazz players left, right and centre were being arrested for anti-nazi music. So yeah, the "propaganda" of his was nothing more than playing good music. Sorry.


	7. Bodies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You want to know who’s an idiot?  
> Me, I’m an idiot. Who posted the unedited version of yesterday’s chapter after staying up until four to edit it in the first place. That is the kind of idiot that I am.  
> If you DO want to read last night’s chapter with ever so slightly less mistakes (which, again, it’s luckily not necessary for story comprehension), you can, but nothing substantial has been added or removed. It’s just… much prettier. And the teensiest bit sassier. 
> 
> This time I’ve got it right. I swear. *goes to make a cup of idiot tea*

Michelle was having a recurring dream. She had had it after the first war as well, but for quite some years now it had stopped plaguing her. When it first came to her again, she welcomed it like an old friend, not because she loved it – she awoke every time, sobbing – but because she could see the both of them now.

 For the first few years, she created a tiny litany – a nonsense phrase – to make it go away. It ran thusly:

 “The body was never recovered.

The body lay in a field.”

 She would repeat it over and over until the pictures faded, and then she would try to sleep again. Sometimes the dream would come back and she would see her husband again and wake up and then she would have to restart her process.

 “The body was never recovered.

The body lay in a field.

The body was never recovered.

The body lay in a field.

The body was never recovered.

The body lay in a field.”

The dream gradually disappeared as the years wore on, and by the time she’d had her second child it had been a long time since it had last visited her. In 1943 it came back, slithering like black smoke in her sleep. Except this time, instead of just her husband, she was allowed to see her son as well. Eyes warm and crinkled, teeth white, dimples, scrunched noses. She wondered every time what they were laughing at, but never asked. Asking might make them stop.

When she woke up, she knew that two lines wouldn’t be enough anymore, and added another slapdash-constructed couple:

 “The body was never recovered.

The body lay in a field.

The field was littered with bodies.

The bodies were never recovered.”

 She repeated the lines over and over, and then she went back to sleep.

******* 

The day that Eggsy saw him for the first time after he’d been crowned had been a strange one. It had been sunny, but clouds had loomed on the horizon like an allusion to everything that was about to happen to their world, and it had been several months since they had last seen each other. They had agreed to meet via their usual method, and Harry had arrived at the manor and found Eggsy standing in the enormously empty hall, studying the walls as though they were poisonous.

"Eggsy," he said, because although hadn't exactly been subtle in his entrance, Eggsy hadn't turned to greet him yet. He did so now, smiling a tiny grimace, and refusing to look him in the eyes.

Harry noticed all the changes in his demeanour, the sullen silence, his eyes dull, his body language a barrier between Harry's gaze and his usually so open thoughts.

“So, king. What do I call you now?”

“Harry is fine.”

“Not really kingsly though…” Eggsy looked down, feet and arms fidgety. Harry wanted to hold him, but before he could move, Eggsy spoke again. “So how long are you staying?”

“A day, maybe… if I don’t get called away. I’m sorry.” He was, he was so sorry.

“Right. And when are you coming back?”

“As soon as possible.”

Eggsy still wouldn’t look at him. “So it’s gonna be a while.”

“Maybe.” The urge to walk to him, to touch him after so long was overwhelming, but Eggsy wasn't… he wanted to know that he was allowed to hold him, and Eggsy wasn’t looking at him.

“And what do I do?”

“What do you want to do?”

Eggsy shrugged, and then looked at him, finally. “Nothing I can do, is there…”

Harry could tell that this was another argument, and he very much didn’t want to spend this day arguing. Not after so long. He walked to him, raising his arms to hold him. “What is it you want to tell me?” If he spoke calmly, acted as though he was already apologizing, Eggsy wouldn’t get angry.

Eggsy pushed him away, smiling bitterly. “I can’t leave here, Harry. If I stay with you here, I’ll be stuck in this beautiful fucking house waiting for you. I need to _do_ something. I want to do something for me… that’s not you.

“I don’t understand. You can do whatever you want.”

His voice was almost hysterical for a few seconds, before he calmed himself. “ _No!_ No, I can’t! I spent my entire life doing shit because someone told me to, you get me? My mum goes mental and Dean comes into our lives and trashes the fucking piano, and I do what the fuck he tells me. And then you come along and I do something for me, and I think you’ll change something, I’ll be different somehow. But now I’m just as stuck as before, I’m just in a nicer house.”

Harry’s voice turned cold. “You can leave. Whenever you want.”

“I. Can’t…”

“What?”

“I can’t leave… I don’t want to leave. All I’ve got is you, and my mum and sister. But they can take care of themselves, I’m just… I’m in the way.” His voice had lost all its bite, its conviction. “And for you I’m a distraction.”

“Eggsy. You’re so much more.” Harry took a step towards him again and Eggsy didn’t move, although his face spasmed for a moment. “Please…”

He slowly held out his hand and placed it on his arm, as though placating a frightened animal. Eggsy leaned into the touch and Harry took the incentive to gently, slowly encircle him with his other arm, pulling him into a soft embrace. Eggsy buried his head into his shoulder, breathing him in.

Harry traced small circles on his back. “My boy. Your life isn’t decided by what others want. _Especially_ not me.”

Eggsy sniffled. “I’m gonna leave and go travelling. And then you can miss me for a change.” He smiled against Harry.

“I always miss you.”

“I just… I want…” Eggsy pulled back slightly, looking into his eyes with a deep sincerity that made Harry want to hold him even closer.

“Yes?”

“I want to go somewhere with you. I want to be allowed to walk next to you, on the street. If I were a proper gentleman… people might think we was equals.” Eggsy took a step back again, idly running his hands across the front of Harry’s suit.

Harry scoffed. “Gentlemen aren’t inherently superior, no matter what the snobs say. Any monkey could achieve that goal.”

Eggsy laughed. “Still… maybe I’ll go out and marry a Scandinavian princess or something and when I come back we’ll be the same.”

“I would be very jealous,” Harry said, taking a hold of his hands and slowly lifting them to his lips. Eggsy watched him, transfixed.

“S’fine, You can join in our brilliant sex. She’s very open-minded.”

“Oh really?” Harry kissed the back of his hand. “Young?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Pretty.” Harry kissed him again.

“Course.”

“Intelligent.” Kiss.

“Sharp as needles.”

“Brave, funny, sweet.” Three kisses.

“Yeah.”

“Hmmm.”

Eggsy allowed his arms to be pulled around Harry’s shoulders. Harry kissed his nose. “I might be persuaded. Sounds like a handful though.”

“Not sure if you could handle it to be honest,” Eggsy grinned, standing on his toes to reach Harry’s lips. Harry smirked.

“Darling… watch me.”

 *******

The king was visiting war widows. Some of them appeared grateful that he remembered their existence, while others were openly angry at his budging into their lives with hollow words and empty encouragement. He walked down a line and said “your sacrifice is valued by the crown,” with as much sincerity as he could muster. The words themselves were disgusting to him, but he knew that his voice, his compassion and empathy to their situation was completely real.

Harry wanted to tell each and every one of them “ _I’m just like you, I know exactly what you’re going through,”_ but he just repeated the same words “ _your sacrifice is valued by the crown.”_

He told himself the same thing, over and over again, while carefully seeing how each face, young and old, reacted. They were all mirrors of his own face really. Reactions he wasn't allowed to have in public, but he could pretend that they were him. The ones that cried, the ones who scowled, the ones who refused to look at him, and the ones who were empty canvasses, because what can the words of the king actually change?

 He sometimes retraced old memories and pretended that he’d stopped Eggsy from leaving. He’d had the power, he could have done anything, had him pronounced unfit, had him locked up, made him stay. He wondered whether he would have preferred him alive and hating him. Sometimes he reached the conclusion that he would have, and sometimes he told himself that he could never have taken his choices from him.

But he kept going through every piece of their history, changing it so that Eggsy stayed instead, just to pretend for a little bit that things were different.

On his way back from meeting all of them he focused on that day in the hall, after he had been crowned king. That was the definitive one, wasn’t it? Everything after that had just been a continuation of the day that Eggsy had decided to leave.

Harry began at the start, where he hadn’t approached, although he’d wanted to. Changed it into an embrace ( _but if Eggsy hadn’t wanted to be touched then he would have been hurting him)_ , heard Eggsy saying that he could never leave. Told him that he didn’t want him to leave ( _Eggsy would have known then that he was being controlled again),_ Eggsy wanted to be a gentleman, well you can’t be, because if you were then all this subterfuge wouldn’t have been fucking necessary ( _why would he ever say that to him, he wouldn’t do this to him)._

At the end of the fantasy, Eggsy still let himself be kissed, because this was _Harry’s_ fantasy and in it he could kiss Eggsy as much as he wanted to. But his face was wrong, as though he was about to cry, and for some reason Harry couldn’t change that.

 *******

His mother was crying. His sister was crying. And they both watched somebody who was playing a piano. But the crying overshadowed the playing so really, did it matter that anybody was sitting behind the bloody piano at all. He wanted to go to them, tried to shout it somehow so that the piano-player would stop for a moment and let him go over there. And it continued. On and on. While his mouth tried to form the words.

“Mwnt m’ mum.”

And then the dream changed into a memory.

Harry’s voice was calm when he told him that he was going to war. “Of course you are. You’re a knight of the realm.”

It made him laugh. _Him,_ a knight? Harry kissed him lightly and whispered into his ear. “You’re Galahad.”

“I wanna be Lancelot. Everyone knows Lancelot,” he whined.

Harry shook his head. “No, Galahad. Galahad was allowed to see the Holy Grail, because he remained pure.”

Eggsy snorted. “I’ve got at least a hundred reasons why that ain’t working for me.”

“Well, we can disagree.”

“That’s just fancy talk for saying that you’re right.”

“Galahad,” murmured Harry against his lips.

In the background there were other voices. They were interrupting this. They weren’t supposed to be there. He tried to shout a _fuck off_ in between kissing Harry, but his voice no longer functioned.

His eyes opened, complaining and cracking as though he were breaking through rock. The light on the other side of the mountain was horrible and not worth the journey of opening them in the first place.

He groaned and shut them again, but it was too late. Now he had a headache.

“Er ist wieder aufgewacht.”

“Hohl' den Arzt.”

He tried to speak to them and failed and decided that the dreams were better than facing Germans and headaches right now and fell asleep again. A tiny part of himself registered that he was alive, but his irrational self pointed out that if he had been dead, he wouldn't have a fucking headache right now.

Stupid fucking headache.

At least the dreams were nice.


	8. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this chapter: The first half of this is incredibly dark, in terms of a depiction of war-events and POW camps. I had a hard time writing certain things, so if you’re not comfortable about reading, then the second half begins after these symbols:  
> *******  
> *******  
> I will write a short description of the top-half in case you don’t want to read it, or are unsure, so that you still know what happens.

The prison camp was overcrowded and cold, but the mass of bodies meant that at night people could keep each other warm. Warmer. The Germans treated them with neither preference nor malice, but every so once in a while somebody would step out of line, and they would have to work harder, eat less. British and American soldiers were after all a future commodity to be sold in return for German prisoners of war and could not be mistreated. One had the distinct impression that nobody thought that Germany was going to win, although nobody said this out loud.

His home had never had much food. One war, one depression, one drunk, another war. His mother would always hide extra food for him and his sister, in case of hard times. One time there had been nothing in the cupboard for three days. He had scrumped and stolen and begged and he’d been caught and beaten and run away. So the lack of food here was not so much a problem as an old way of living, and this time with less violence.

He counted the days he spent there and hoped that his mother was doing alright for herself without him. Not that she didn’t work, but more that she wasn’t worrying about him. When she worried it was harder for her.

He hoped that he wouldn’t miss another birthday. They would be so disappointed in him if he missed another birthday.

 He wondered what the king would be doing right now? What did Harry do when he wasn’t with him? Did he just stay as the king all the time, or did he think of him every once in a while and become Harry again? Was he waiting for him to come home so that they could continue where they had left off?

He fell asleep imagining himself coming home, Harry stood at the docks and waited, along with countless faceless civilians, and nobody threw him a second glance. He was just Harry. They would buy a flat in London. Over in East End. Harry might be a rich ponce, but Eggsy preferred a smaller, less oppressive atmosphere to the big empty villas and mansions and palaces.

What would Harry do? What was Harry good at, other than kinging? Eggsy decided that neither of them had a job, and they’d spend all day just doing what they wanted. They deserved to do what they wanted, Eggsy decided. By now they had done enough of what they didn’t want to do, and it would be a shame if they were bound by any kinds of rules in his fantasies as well.

So the first day they did nothing. They curled around each other in bed. Harry’s hair was mussed. Eggsy was almost asleep and Harry murmured things, half at him, half at the ceiling. Eggsy’s brain was very bad at imagining what he said, but he could tell that it was articulate and poetic, possibly even book-worthy. They lay like that for hours and hours, utterly content, in their tiny East End flat, until Eggsy sprang up and decided that it was time for dinner. Not because they needed food – in Eggsy’s head they never _needed_ anything, but because it suited the domesticity of the future life that they would have.

He woke up and counted another day.

Five men died that winter. Eggsy hadn’t spoken to any of them while he’d stayed there, but he knew that they had been sick and a little older than the rest of the POWs, and that it was the cold and the labour and the lack of food and the hopelessness that got them – at least there was no outbreak of disease yet. He wondered what it was like to wake up next to a dead man, and had nightmares about it for several weeks. Every face that he had ever known, one after the other, lying beside him and staring at nothing, stiff as boards from the frost. He couldn’t even dream about Harry.

In the Spring the days were interchangeably pleasantly warm and infested with mosquitos or disgustingly wet and muddy. In both cases the entire camp reeked. They were preferable to the snow and the frost of course, but everybody mumbled complaints all the same.

A group of men planned a prisonbreak that failed miserably. Eggsy had been asked to participate, but had declined. And continued to count the amount of days he had stayed there. It couldn’t be long now. The men disappeared and there was a general shaking of heads and murmurs of “ten miles down the road…”

A few days after the escape failed there was an official inspection of the camp. “The head Nazis”- as Major Leroy spat – were to oversee the removal of harmful insurgents or future instigators. The men were all lined up, trying to look as presentable as possible, but managing only to appear a little desperate to look presentable. Eggsy slumped ever so slightly more than was necessary.

Two men were picked from the ranks. One of them started to cry. They were escorted away to what Eggsy could only assume was an execution, by the way that the air turned impossibly more dank and crushing.

“What’s ten miles down the road?” asked Eggsy, later.

Ryan shrugged. “I don’t know. Just that it’s where all non-Europeans go. Different camp. Easier to categorise us, I guess.”

“So why’d they take them yesterday? They’re British soldiers.”

“Think it’s ‘cos they’re Jewish.”

The conversation ended there, with a feeling of apprehension, as though there was a secret box that, once opened, would grab your thoughts in a suffocating chokehold and never let go again.

 By now his future fantasy had progressed from their tiny flat and onto grocery shopping, past getting a dog that looked suspiciously like JC, through to meeting Eggsy’s family, and into the dangerous realms of walking holidays.

Technically, in this future, they didn’t need holidays, since they weren’t working, but Eggsy decided that it would be a good idea to get away from the hustle and bustle of London city life. So they went to a non-descript mountainous area that looked somewhat like what he thought the Peak District might look like, but with far more streams and rivers and trees that probably weren’t English. He had seen trees that weren’t English on one of his earlier tours and liked them a lot, so he put them in their walk.

Harry pointed them out and said “ _those aren’t normal trees_ ” and Eggsy swatted his hand away and grumbled that “ _you have to complain even in my bloody dreams_.” Harry smirked and kissed him lightly. “ _I don’t care what kind of trees they are_.” Fantasy-Harry didn’t have a care in the world.

 By summer there was almost no food left.

The camp was emptied very quickly and suddenly one day and they were all forced to walk down a wide country lane. It opened up into a small brightly coloured village that looked as though its inhabitants had left it in a hurry. The air was tense and filled with the sensation that something was about to happen, but nobody knew exactly what. The windows were shuttered, but then one of them opened a fraction and everybody looked up as they walked on.

A tiny hand waved at them before it was pulled back and the shutters were slammed to again. There were no further signs of life as they continued to tramp on. 

Their new camp was overcrowded and filled with walking skeletons. Ten miles down. There was a strange acknowledgment that the new arrivals were British and Americans and they received extra food and less work-detail. Eggsy stopped having dreams about Harry.

They were told after three months that they would all be moved inland. Before the march, they were lined up for counting and every second man was shot in the head. Eggsy counted out of the corner of his eye and knew for thirty seconds before they reached him that he was about to die. He tried to focus on his fantasy, but it slipped and crashed to the ground. Then somebody yelled to stop… his hair was blond and his jaw was square and therefore he _clearly_ wasn’t Jewish... We don’t shoot people like him. They changed the rhythm and the man on his right was executed instead.

After that they began to march.

_*******_

 *******

The house was empty and meaningless somehow, stripped bare of all the things that had once defined it as _hers._ There the corner in which the piano had once stood. There the place that she had first been proposed to. There the room in which she had known that she was pregnant. And over there when she had discovered it the second time. Where she had sat, stood, walked, smiled, cried, bled… Michelle had decided that it was time to leave. She thought that a nice little house in London for the two of them would be nice.

She had been working hard in the past few months, her underpaid waitressing job having suddenly led her to an entirely different avenue of work. It had been a strange occurrence that had happened just after Christmas, when she had been serving a costumer who had handed her a number with the words _Oxfords not Brogues_ written beneath it and told her that if she should ever need help, simply to call. Michelle had asked why she was being approached and the woman had shrugged and said, “somebody owes you a favour. Just call the number on the phone and say the words. If you want to accept, that is.”

Out of sheer curiosity she had walked into the nearest telephone booth and made an illegal free call. “Costumer complaints, how can we help you?”

“Um, my name’s Michelle Unwin and I was told to call this number if I needed help – “

“Sorry love. Wrong number.”

“Wait… Oxfords not Brogues?” The words had sounded silly, and she had decided to hang up and go home, when there had been a change in the voice and a request for her to meet at a specific address the following day. The job, she had been told, had been a project set up by the king for the rehabilitation of wounded soldiers. It was, she had been assured, a well-paid job, because nurses were too few and hospitals overcrowded.

She hadn’t asked why the secrecy, but had taken the train in to London and begun work immediately The desire to move closer to her work had come with her first promotion and had grown steadily since then, and now…

The house was empty. Their things packed and already mostly sent on ahead. They closed the door behind them and took the train.

It was a nice day for a trainride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What happened in this chapter was Eggsy in a POW camp. He describes things like the weather and it generally not being great – but also not horrible because they’re British and American. He has a small fantasy about the future that he and Harry are going to have together, which includes a dog, a small flat, and a nice holiday, and it gradually takes over as things get worse.  
> After a few men (not including him) try an escape attempt that goes wrong, there’s an inspection of the camp and two Jewish-English soldiers are moved to a concentration camp that’s ten miles down the road.  
> After D-Day Eggsy and the remainder of the men are also sent there because the first camp is shut down for reasons such as a lack of food. There follows a short short description of the second camp. At the end that camp is also closed down and they are all told that they are being moved inland. Many of the prisoners are shot in front of him, but he survives because he looks “pure” enough. The fantasy of his future with Harry ceases.


	9. Reading

The king gave a speech on the nature of war and rallied the people into believing in the troops for the invasion, echoing something that he had believed in once upon a time in 1939. The radio did not reveal whether or not the British still trusted in him, since he couldn’t hear the applause – or lack of it, but he was assured that they did. Meanwhile, the attack on Normandy began.

In the quiet moments in between official duties and dinners with the prime minister, he went through the letters again. They were hidden as secretly as believed possible, but – as he had snidely pointed out to Merlin – his valet was a better spy than even Lancelot. To which Merlin had scoffed and said “well, I might hire him to spy on you then.”

Harry read one of the earlier letters. 1937. Before Eggsy had semi-lived in the large manor and before he had been king.

  _He and his friends were going to London in a few days – for a job opportunity, but maybe they could pop by Buckingham Palace for a sip of tea and crumpets?_

_His sister had spoken her first word, he’d tell him all about it when they were together again, it was pretty massive news that could only be properly explained face to face._

He’d read only half of the letter when there had been a knock on the door and a footman had announced that Churchill had arrived. The King had frowned. He wasn’t sure whether Churchill was the best choice for prime minister, and yet the man continued to insist that he was a better candidate than Lord Halifax.

In 1937, Harry had sat opposite the soon-to-be prime minister and heard the words “War with Germany will come, and we will need a king who we can all stand behind united.” No, his brother would be king, surely.

A few days later, Eggsy had been lying beside him, while Harry had stroked his hair lightly. Eggsy had excitedly told him all about his sister’s first word “Eggy.” Harry had somehow felt as though these moments would continue forever, then.

 

The king visited the East End again, to the general applause of the people. On the same day he awarded the George Cross to ten citizens, and then announced that he was going to visit the army at Normandy. More applause. Ten days after D-Day, he arrived at the beaches, a sunny afternoon in June. Something about it had initially jolted a sudden smell of apples and a light caress of a breeze that felt all too familiar, but the battlefield was anything like that particular memory. The sea air was pungent with salt, gunpowder, the wounded and the dead. They were being shipped home and he took the time to go through the boats to thank them for their service. It was oddly comforting, knowing that some of them would be allowed to go home and live and the others would at least be returned to their families for proper burials. There was a certainty in their eyes – both the live and the dead ones – that they were free of this at last.

He wandered across the Mulberry harbour of Arromanches and oversaw the unloading of guns, equipment and men, and everywhere he went there was a hum as he was seen, of strange awe at his presence, and an expectancy of things to come. They held the beach now. The king was here. More men were arriving – he frowned a bit upon seeing them. Most of them were already veterans, sent back because they merely suffered from combat fatigue, or a few grazes. Nothing to be done there, he knew that. No way to help anybody properly until the war was over, but he wished... that the word of the king could save them. Save all the ones that were already dead, the ones he knew would die, and the ones that would never be the same. What use was of being the king, if all he could do was be noticed wherever he went.

He pictured himself walking down an ordinary street, perhaps the docks, anonymous as the next civilian. If there was a young man with an obscure face and a well-pressed uniform walking beside him, well… everyone would be casting second glances at the young man, because he would be exceedingly noticeable, with his charming smile, his confident stride. They would be at ease with one another. Just an ordinary walk taken by two friends. There was no need to worry about what people would think if two anonymous men walked side by side, arms brushing against each other.

A man was carrying a large wooden box out of one of the Pheonixes and Harry quickly rushed over to help him.

“Where to?” he grunted.

“This way,” answered the man, and Harry helped carry it across the beach. Now there was nobody watching him at all. Just two men carrying a piece of cargo. It wasn’t quite the civilian docks, or the relaxed walk of two people enjoying each other’s company, but it was okay. When they put it down, the man turned to look at him properly, meaning to say thank you, and the spell was broken.

He gaped. Harry waved him off and said “anytime,” and walked away before the man could stutter any _highnesses_ or _majesties._ Perhaps he was now a good story that nobody would believe.

He was being respectfully watched again as he made his way to the tent where a group of generals had probably been waiting for him for a while. He was late. He nodded pleasantly to the men and wished most of them a pleasant day and good luck. Most were awestruck, although there were some cheeky “same to you’s.”

One man stopped him suddenly and held out a scarred, grimy hand. "Just on behalf of all of us, 'cos nobody quite dares say it, we're all quite proud of you, sir. You're an alright leader and quite the inspiration, and a decent enough fellow."

Harry shook it, smiling ever so slightly. "I have faith in you," he said. And walked on. And allowed himself to be seen and noticed, because it was good for some things. He knew that.

There were days when being the king was okay.

 

Another moment presented itself a few days later. The night was silent and oppressively lonely, so he dug through the letters again. At the bottom there lay a few piano sheets that he had saved seven months ago. Eggsy’s music pieces – all unfinished.

He never could finish anything. Either the feeling was wrong, the piano off-key, or the weather too distracting. Eggsy had been good with excuses to not play and instead pull Harry outside to go swimming, or for a walk, or to listen to the radio. Later one of his favourite things had been to dance. Harry couldn’t say he’d minded, but now he wished he’d insisted more often, he’d have had something finished to remember him by… 

_He was sick and although his mother had been a fusspot, he’d left in case his sister might catch it. No need to worry about him, he was fine really, although maybe a fever was coming along. Can you believe the weather we’re having? I think it’s time for Noah’s arc to make a reappearance._

Harry had had wet hair and Eggsy had sat lazily at the keys and told him that he hadn’t needed to escape London in the rain to come and see him. But he’d written to tell him that he was sick, and Harry had asked Merlin for a tiny favour and had cancelled four meetings with various politicians and a foreign dignitary and rushed to see him.

Eggsy had sneezed and coughed that entire day and Harry had made him countless cups of tea and asked him to go to bed, but Eggsy had said that he was inspired now and had played the most beautiful piano that Harry could remember from him. Of course that had been the exact right time.

The next day Harry hadn’t let him leave the bed and hadn’t left his side either. Eggsy had mumbled that weren’t there things he was meant to be taking care of. He was taking care of them, he’d answered. _Fusspot,_ Eggsy had grumbled, happily.

He visited one of the many hospitals that he’d opened and met all the nurses. Michelle Unwin was working there and he shook her hand and lingered there for a second longer than etiquette demanded, opened his mouth to say something… “you’re very brave,” was what he said, low enough that he wouldn’t have been sure if she’d heard, except her eyes widened a little bit and she mouthed a tiny thank you. He moved on, and didn’t look back. His face, his demeanour betraying nothing as he smiled politely and shook hand after hand of brave women that he said nothing to, but he hoped that they might understand even so.

That evening he recounted to himself what she had looked like. Eggsy’s mother. He'd had the impression that it had been as personal for her as for him, that she'd known that they shared something together. A whole conversation about how much the same man had meant to the both of them, held in two sentences. A part of him knew that she'd probably had no idea why the king had addressed her in particular, but something in her eyes...

He could see the resemblance, although her face was… more faded somehow. Older, of course, but not really that old, just worn down. She had the same look of surprise that he’d had, same mouth – he hadn’t seen her smile so he didn’t know about that, but he thought that that was probably the same as well.

He picked up the letters again. He hadn’t admitted it to himself, but he’d forgotten for a while what Eggsy had looked like. He hadn’t taken any pictures of him when they'd been together, because he’d been afraid. If anybody’d found them… cowardice, really, but his mother looked like him. Not completely, but in the small things. The promise of dimples on either side of her mouth, shadows beneath her eyes, blonde hair… it made it easier to see him again, put him back together.

Only a month before he’d been crowned, he’d met with the man who had covered up his brother’s dirty deeds for years, saved him from humiliation and the country from shame. For falling in love with an American commoner. That didn’t matter anymore. Only his deeds – the future king’s - mattered.

Chester King was the kind of man who feigned compassion when it suited him, but could never entirely remove the obvious disdain he held for certain “types of people” from his face. An incorrigible snob. Harry had had the impression that he’d been less concerned with Eggsy being a man, and more with his social class. There was nothing that Chester King disliked more than the idea that the royal family would yet again stoop to mingle with those of a lesser standing.

He had never mentioned him by name, had never actually told him what the conversation had been about. He had merely told him to rethink his priorities, to remember that the king was always held in far closer scrutiny than the brother of the king was. “Does the king do what he wants, or does he do what the people expect him to do?”

Now that he had known that he was going to be king… he hadn’t been sure then…if he was ever going to see Eggsy again…

_My dearest Harry. That sounds terrible, doesn’t it. I don’t care. Dinner was great, and you said I could write to this address, so I’m doing that, because you seem the type of gent that’d be too big a coward to ask me for another dinner unless I tell you I’m up for it first. Completely, utterly, would adore to see you again. If I never do I don’t mind either. I understand that for types like you this kind of infatuation happens all the time, and I’m not expecting to ever see you again. If there’s one thing that I do hope it’s that you don’t toss this letter away. Not that it’s pretty or poetic and I’m not professing my love here or nothing, but I like to think that everything means something, even if it’s just a kiss. It’s important to hold on to the good things and you were a good thing. So remember me even if you never see me again, and I’ll be a happy bloke, wherever I am._

_But if I do see you again, I’ll be happy as well._

_~~Love~~ _ _Best Wishes and all that_

_Eggsy_

_PS. You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve completely changed my mind about all the snobs. They’re still absolutely horrible, but you’re good and not that much of a coward, and you’d probably make a great king even if I didn’t think you were him._

Harry closed his eyes and could see his face again, clearly for the first time in months, until he accidentally let the letter-box tumble to the floor, spilling its contents about him. In his haste to pick everything up, he lost him again.

*******

The first thing that Roxy had done was to break into a particular filing cabinet in an army base outside Berlin and she therefore knew that 3.200 British soldiers had been taken captive after the battle. Of those, the majority were held in various prison camps around eastern Europe, although nearly a thousand were scattered across Germany and France. There were no records of names, army numbers, or other indicators of identity.

Her search for the strange young man had for many months been hampered by a lack of information, official missions, and the fact that it was sometimes really difficult to simply wander across occupied Europe.

The first time that she had come across a prison camp, the conditions had been squalid, but not entirely inhumane. The second time had been a transport camp, in which she had first borne witness to the segregation of the prisoners and seen the different triangles, the stars. She didn’t find him there either, nor did she find any record of him ever having been there.

The young man’s fate had started to feel personal to her, as though he were her own brother and all she wanted to know was whether this particular needle had survived the haystack of shit that the search for him had started to become for her.

After D-Day she joined an official unit and continued to liberate camp after camp – most were already empty, the prisoners either moved inland or executed. In some places she could look through the records for him, but his kind eyes and earnest face never appeared on any of the prisoner files that she found– if they hadn't already been destroyed. She would send every piece of information that she recovered on the others to the relevant officers, attempting desperately not to think of their fates as his.

A feeling grew inside her as she saw face after face of those who had not survived - an anxiety and a fear that she had never had before.

She felt as though she had already failed.


	10. Countdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty heavy again. We're rejoining Eggsy as the war nears its end. It's again not explicit, but it is still a war narrative and most of the chapter takes place in the final camp. I just... feel like warning people. Because I'm an emotional person who gets horrified easily and I want to make sure that everyone's... um... comfortable? In the angst. Never mind me, I shouldn't be allowed to write notes.
> 
> Another thing. Just to make it clear. The working title for this chapter (and I really should upload these with the chapter names) is "three times the POWs were compared to animals." Just because I realised that without the title it seems as though I'm actually endorsing that description of them. Which I'm not. It could also be that I'm too worried, but in any case I'm going to upload all the chapter names.

It had taken at least a week to get to the last camp. First marching, then being loaded like cattle onto a train that drove for so long that nobody knew quite what day it was when they disembarked, just the darkness and the crush of people all around, men and women and children. Then marching again. It had been dark when they had arrived, and they’d all been examined again, assigned new living quarters and a new roster. And the day began. And repeated itself. And repeated itself. And repeated itself.

It felt like a countdown. At the end of it something would happen, and there was an uncertainty amongst the prisoners and the guards alike as to what that something would be. To everyone, it was as though the world was about to end.

Eggsy knew that he was slowly dying, because he’d been told that when you died, you saw your life pass by you, and he saw it every day in detail. Everything that he experienced in the camp was simply a distorted mirror of what he had already experienced. That was what it was probably like when you died, he figured.

 

Ten: He was tired all the time. They continued to work, and to walk in circles, and to stand in lines, and to get up to the glaring of the siren, and to lie awake at night, and to work, and to walk in circles, and to stand in lines, and to lie awake at night – and an impromptu inspection at three in the morning… and to get up to the glaring of the siren, and to work, and to stand in lines, and to... The tedious sensation of perpetuity haunted their lives, and gradually it was as though the outside world no longer existed, or had never truly existed in the first place. Only work, and walking in circles, and standing in lines, and lying awake at night, and resume from the beginning.

They would all grow old and die here, either sooner or later.

_When he had been very young, he had thought that he would never leave. There was an unspoken agreement between him and his mother that if he left she’d lose another person in her life, and she couldn’t handle that. If he left then anything that happened would be his fault. He had bit down on dreams and school and arts and sports, allowing himself to succeed, but never to take any opportunities that required him to leave her on her own. After Dean had arrived, he’d thought for a short while that things might change, but they had worsened. He had been sure that he would grow old and die there._

 

Nine: He received extra food, which he shared with a tiny brown-triangle man who didn’t receive any. The exchange was made clandestinely, a short drop into his hands, before casually walking on as though nothing had happened. None of the guards noticed and he saw the man a few times after that, and continued to give him food. Several times he saw him sharing it with a boy who reminded him a little of himself, once upon a time. Young and scrawny, but with a determination to go on for as long as it took to take care of those he loved.

_He had never needed much food. It hadn’t been until he’d met Harry that he’d realised just how lovely it was to eat as much as you wanted._

 

Eight: People started to disappear. People had been disappearing since he’d first arrived, but in the last two months it had happened more and more often. There was no talk of where they went or what happened to them. The tiny man accepted the food one day, but the boy wasn’t there.

_Some of Eggsy’s friends had left and never returned, on to better lives. Others had been arrested time and time again, until they too had disappeared from his life. He had been arrested three times in his life, had escaped the police many a time before that. The second time that he’d been arrested, he had been sentenced to do volunteer work at a local hospital, ending up in its gardens. On his last day there, he had received an actual job offer, to work in an area that contained some of the royal gardens. He’d inwardly groaned, but had agreed to do it. If only for a little extra money._

 

Seven: He was beaten one day. He had defended the tiny man from being pulled away after he had fallen over during a walk. The beating was not as bad as it could have been – his identifier marked him as a POW and saved him from what might have been an execution. The tiny man got up and continued to walk as the soldiers were distracted and they seemed to forget about him. Eggsy got up awkwardly and continued.

_Dean had beaten him often, until Harry came along. Most people around him had at some point raised a hand to him. He had fought back by the time he was ten. If anybody had wanted to hurt his mother, his sister, he would make them choose him instead. Often he would make them regret trying to hurt any of them at all._

 

Six: There were new arrivals, meaning that even with the many that were dragged away, the place was still overcrowded and the smell grew worse and worse. They were people from all over Europe, with so many different identifiers that he didn’t know why they were in there. He and some of the other soldiers agreed to save more of their rations for them.

_A family had moved in, down the road. Nice family, he’d guessed. Certainly the wife had smiled a lot and the children had run about and annoyed the kind of people who tended to get annoyed at kids. The father had given him money for small jobs and he’d hoarded it for his mum and him where Dean couldn’t see. One evening when they’d been alone, the man had started to cry and Eggsy had stayed with him. They had fallen asleep in the same bed, and Eggsy had woken up to breakfast and a wide, uncertain smile. It had been the first time that he’d started hoarding the good things that happened in his life. The man and his family had left very suddenly after three months._

 

Five: There were new guards. They were even more on edge, more likely to lash out, but more unwilling to regulate the camp than the old ones had been. It didn’t matter. The prisoners didn’t need anybody to tell them what to do. The system was simple enough.

At night, a few of the men started speaking of escape. A few of the newest arrivals, not as tired, some of the stronger ones. The tiny man held onto his arm as though he could hear his thoughts, and shook his head silently.

_The first time he’d broken into a building, he’d almost been caught. The rush of the chase, the thrill of the danger had after that become a part of the temptation – although he’d never committed a crime that he hadn’t been able to argue was worth it. There had always been something invigorating about the threat of being punished and then escaping that punishment. And he’d almost always escaped._

 

Four: He saw people killed. Again. They were executed as an example to the rest of them. Insubordination was not to be tolerated. Of the twenty who had attempted to get away, five were still alive. Eggsy had led the other four in the opposite direction, having got lost in the dark, and had accidentally saved them by hiding in a barrack. Every eye in that place had watched them, as though knowing that they had cheated death. In the chaos of the ensuing blaring of the siren, they had managed to sneak back to their own ranks.

_The first time he saw a dead man, he was five. The man had been a drunk who’d fallen underneath the hooves of a rampant horse and there had been blood and brain and bone smeared onto the cobbles. It was the first time that he’d seen violence outside his own home._

 

Three: His fingers were scarred and stiff from the work. The tiny man had hands that were twisted and mangled, but Eggsy sometimes massaged them gently in order to return the life to them. They were nice to touch.

_His piano. The dirt. Harry’s skin. Water. His sister’s hands. Pillows. There had been many things in his life that had been soft to touch._

 

Two: They were all going to die. He hadn’t seen the tiny man for several days.

_The first was the man, who had never hurt him, except for when he had had to leave again and hadn’t been able to keep his promise to protect him. The second had been Mary, and perhaps mostly because it had been expected of him, but it had been sweet. The problem had been the question of marriage. Neither of them had wanted that. The third had been a disaster. The fourth, fifth, and sixth as well._

_The seventh was Harry._

 

One: They were rescued. It was so sudden that nobody quite knew what to do when the guards all disappeared. Within a day the new soldiers spilled through the gates and opened them wide, telling them that it was okay to leave. They were gently herded into different groups, like scared sheep.

The time hadn’t moved since he had arrived there. The second he stepped out of the gates it started again and he felt like an old man who had awoken one day to see that his entire life had passed him by. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw somebody that he recognised. The tiny man. He waved his gnarled and painful hand in goodbye and disappeared in the swarm of bodies that were looking for food. Before Eggsy could hurry after him, he was pulled aside and asked who he was. He didn't say. But he was vouched for as a British soldier by some of the others, and a damn good one too. He said nothing to confirm or deny the sentiment.

They were moved again, gently, in another direction. Onto a van.

They were all being shipped back to England.

Congratulations, they survived the war.

*******

On V-Day, Michelle took her daughter to the memorial. There would be another one built soon enough, she supposed. The little girl tugged on her sleeve. She looked into her eyes, the same eyes… they looked exactly like…

“Look baby, this is where daddy and Eggsy are watching over you.”

“Mummy, can we go to the country?”

“Not today. But you and me, we’ll get something nice alright?”

Her face crumpled into a thoughtful frown, and again… for a second looking like… Her face cleared into realisation: “…Sweeties?”

“Sweeties.”

*******

 His body was never recovered. And now many young men and women, thought dead, were returning to where they had come from and although the country celebrated, the pictures and footage of the prison camps appeared to suggest that they had never fully been brought back to life. The living dead, tumbling onto the shores of countries they once knew. Bodies never recovered. Some never would be.

Harry contacted Merlin. Merlin was reliable, and since he was semi in charge of Kingsman, helpful. Merlin had confessed to him, he’d been looking for Eggsy for months. He’d sent Lancelot, his best agent. For Harry. And only because it hadn’t been for the king. So far there had been no success and Harry wasn’t to get his hopes up.

He wondered where Eggsy would be found. He could suddenly show up again at his mother’s old place, looking exactly the same as he remembered. The sun would shine and Eggsy would bring back the smell of apples, the taste of warmth.

Or maybe he would find him as he once had, curled up in their bed, perhaps a little tired and hurt, maybe thinner, but otherwise unharmed.

So far, however, Eggsy had not appeared on the lists of the recovered.

*******

The body of Michelle Unwin’s husband had never been returned to England. She never gave a thought to hope that her son’s might. By now her daughter spoke many words, but only vaguely remembered a kind, smiling face, with slightly crooked teeth and nose that she’d once liked. His voice was somewhere where she couldn’t quite find it again.

*******

Roxy looked through pictures and pictures of rescued British soldiers. The ones who had no names, for one reason or another. Gary Unwin hadn’t been officially recovered, was still designated as having fallen in battle.

The people that she was looking at mostly didn’t speak. Some of them couldn’t spell either, or their hands shook too badly to hold a pen. They were held for observation until somebody could reclaim them, as though they were lost dogs. She felt as though she had spent the entire last six months of the war looking at pictures of people who could no longer say their names.

This was the final attempt, she had been told. Eventually people who had died had to be allowed to stay dead. For now, she angrily told herself, he wasn’t dead. Until she had finished looking through everybody, seen every face, everybody who was alive and who hadn’t survived, he couldn’t be dead.

Another page, another, another, another, shit this was a waste of time…

Another, another... he was dead...

Another... let him go...

Another... Ano -

... 

She started to laugh, and then to cry. She had found him.

He was alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm not sure if it's annoying or not, but the reason I'm answering people in the comments all the time is just that I get so excited about the comments. You're really lovely people and thanks for sticking with me for these last ten days.
> 
> EDIT: the prisoners of camps were given different identifications via triangles (ex. one of the ones we remember best is pink triangles used to identify gay men - and rapists, paedophiles zoophiles, it's really gross and horrible). The brown triangle (aka our tiny man) was used to identify Roma.


	11. Alright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for attempted suicide. It takes place after, but they do talk about it.

It was at a celebration party in which he was supposed to be rubbing elbows with all the ministers. His brother turned up with his wife and she immediately steered towards a large group of American dignitaries who were loudly boasting about their involvement in the war. There were many generals littered around the rooms, who hadn’t seen a single hour of fighting, but were promoted due to their titles. Smalltalk reigned supreme.

There was a feeling in the room that the world had changed. Maybe it would be a world with fewer titles. At least Churchill was also bearing an expression that looked as pained as he felt, and a few officers and generals who had fought at the front looked ever so slightly disgusted, but mostly hid it behind the wine.

He bore the traditional bowing and small-talk, the congratulations and also the condolences, as though every death was somehow personal to him. As king, every citizen was his personal loss. As king…

“Excuse me, your majesty, there’s a call waiting for you.”

He excused himself and entered the telephone room, yet another decadent display of overdoing something for the purpose of showing that one had a large amount of money. He doubted that the phone would work any worse if it stood in a hall.

Merlin was waiting for him in the room.

“Harry.”

His breath sounded ragged to his own ears. “Merlin, you’ve found him… Is Gary Unwin alive?”

“He returned to England yesterday and is being held for observation. He tried to shoot himself a few days ago. Lancelot saved him. He’s alive. In critical condition, but alive.”

Harry sank to his knees.

******* 

The hospital was stale. Its colours were grey and dank and there was the vague feeling of somebody constantly dying right next to you, and of old food lying somewhere just out of sight.

Eggsy had a bandage around his forehead that covered most of the left half of his face. He was asleep.

Sleeping was quite a lottery these days. A one in a thousand chance that he would dream of Harry, or his mum, or his sister, and sometimes of other nice things. Mostly the dreams were nightmares, of course. Not just the real ones in which people were shot or beaten or blown up, but also strange and twisted things in which he hurt people. He vividly remembered them whenever he woke up.

And there were the odd, anxiety-inducing ones, like what he was having right now. He was in a large, endless field, bright and sunny, the grass almost yellow from the light. He ran through it, wearing clothes that he had owned since he was sixteen and that were far too small by now, but his mother had bought them for him and he’d never had such a fancy shirt and waistcoat before.

Standing in front of him there was a mansion, protected by a large wall. It loomed threateningly above the surrounding landscape and cast a shadow across the grass.

It was where he had been staying for the last few years, on and off, simply waiting for… what did he wait for when he was there? Was it meant to be so big? He reached the wall and there was a small, green door in the side. He opened it – he knew he that it would be unlocked – and was suddenly indoors. A long line of people stood to his left and to his right, staring at him hatefully. He began to walk down the middle, his body hurting, face after face after face looking at him.

Somewhere, if he kept walking, there would be a way out of this, he knew.

And eventually he saw it, an open door beyond the hall, a bright light shining from it. He began to run and it felt as though the path became smaller, forcing the crowd of people to stand ever closer to where he tried to get through. It was harder and harder to ignore them and his breathing was piercingly deafening in the otherwise silent scramble of people.

He fell through the doorway, and clambered to his feet, looking panicked from left to right. There was nobody in here, just a large, dimly lit room with windows that stretched from floor to ceiling, impossibly long. There was a bed in the middle of it and he edged towards it as though it might explode.

The bed was made with fantastical sheets that seemed to move beneath him, blues and reds twirling into purples and glimmering in the gloom. He reached out to pull aside the duvet, suddenly more terrified than before. Beneath it lay a man, dead. He had been shot in the head. Blood spooled from beneath him and spread across the bed in spiderlike tendrils, as though it were alive.

He reached out to touch the familiar face, when somebody grabbed his arm and wrenched him away, holding his arms tightly behind his back, enough to hurt. A sickening voice hissed into his ear. “ _You killed the king.”_

“ _I didn’t kill him,”_ he screamed in return…

And kept screaming as arms held him down and tried to quiet him and there were other voices behind those voices, and the voices were saying something indecipherable and he was… in bed. Awake.

He reached to the nearest nurse... _she had been the one who'd stopped him from_ … pulling her towards him. “Is the king alive?” he garbled desperately. She nodded. A small woman, who calmed him with her eyes. He saw no hint of her remembering their last meeting.

“Last I heard,” she answered, her voice soothing and professional.

He breathed again.

“You have a visitor,” she told him. “But you’ve got to promise to behave, alright?”

Eggsy thought for a moment, and appeared even more impossibly pale than he already was. “I can’t see my mum like this, please.”

The nurse shook her head. “Not her. Some gentleman, I believe.” Her voice was firm and familiar. One of the rich women who felt sorry for the poor soldiers with combat fatigue and volunteered to be a nurse, and people thought that they had it easy, but the nurses… well, they saw what came after. And that was even messier than the fighting itself. It lasted far longer. He wanted to tell her something, but his voice stuck in his throat, and so he simply closed his good eye and nodded.

Everybody left the room. Outside it was dark and the dull lamps that swung from the ceiling only illuminated the beds, all empty except for his. Where was everyone else?

He opened his eye again, scanning the darkness. “This isn’t fucking funny,” he yelled into the echoing emptiness. In answer there was the scrape of a chair as somebody stood up, and footsteps that clacked against the floor.

The chair was put down beside him and Harry sat down. His face was sad. “Hello Eggsy,” he said fondly.

Eggsy looked at him for the longest time without saying anything. It felt like a strange place to meet each other again, after so long, and Eggsy hadn’t planned for it to be like this.

Harry simply waited for him to answer. It made Eggsy uncomfortable. “Does my mum know?”

“That you’re alive? By now, hopefully yes. A lot of soldiers have been incapable of saying where they come from or who they were. It seems that you were counted among them. I thought…”

Harry was staring at the bandages.

“You thought I’d gone ‘round-the-bend. What does it look like?” he smiled slightly, but it made his head ache. “Does she know about…?”

“No. I thought it best… when you were ready.”

Eggsy nodded as much as the bed and the pain allowed him. “Yup. When I don’t look so, uhm, horrible. I think.”

“You don’t look horrible.”

“I look like I almost shot my eye out. Woulda done worse too, if… whatwashername hadn’t stopped me. One of the nurses. The small one. From before. Arms like metal. If she hadn’t been there, guess my brains woulda been blown out at last.”

Eggsy didn’t look him in the face. Harry said nothing.

“How’d you find me?” asked Eggsy, turning back to him.

Harry looked a little embarrassed. “I may have misused my power a little. But the Kingsmen are good friends of mine.”

“Kingsmen?”

“Yes. You may have met one of them. Although I don’t know if I should say more.”

The headache was getting worse. “How are you, Harry?” he asked to change the subject.

“It changes from day to day. I’m mostly okay.”

“You won the war. That’s good. Thanks for that.” Smiling again, somewhat sardonically. "Took you a while to get to me. I get it, you're pretty busy."

Harry finally reached out, placing a hand over Eggsy’s. He flinched back and Harry let go again. His hand had felt… so very different. He couldn’t remember exactly how it had once felt, but he knew that it had been different. “My boy…” he didn’t know where to go from there.

Eggsy turned away from him. “Not a fucking kid anymore, Harry,” he mumbled. There was no bite to what he said. He simply sounded tired, and a little bored.

Harry opened his mouth, but closed it again immediately. Simply sat there. Waiting again for him to speak.

“It’s your turn to say something,” said Eggsy. There was a faint shudder to his voice now, although the surface of it was as apathetic as before. “Can’t keep this conversation going on my own.”

“The doctors…!” blurted Harry. No, maybe this wasn’t the time to talk about it.

“Yes?”

Eggsy still wouldn’t turn to look at him.

Harry ploughed on, speaking with as little inflection as possible. His mouth was dry and his hands trembled. “They said that you were lucky. It seems as though you barely grazed the brain, so it was mostly the head trauma that they were afraid of. The bullet didn’t shatter on impact, but there will be some scarring around the eye, that’ll possibly interfere with your eyesight. But you’re going to be discharged in a month. Obviously you need to return for observation, there may be something that they missed, but... on the whole, you’re alright.”

“Harry." It was said with so much sudden tenderness that he wanted to try to hold his hand again. But he didn't. Eggsy's breathing was heavy. "I’m not alright.” Pause. Breathe. “I have a headache.” It was a faint murmur. Eggsy was speaking against the pillow, arms wrapped around it so that all Harry could see of his face was the bandage.

“Do you need to sleep?”

Eggsy nodded.

“Do you…” _want me to come back? “_ Do you want me to fetch a nurse? To find you something for the headache?”

He shook his head.

Harry stood. “I’ll come back. I promise.” He almost put a hand on Eggsy’s shoulder, but stopped himself. He let it hover inches above, pretending that he was touching him for a few seconds. Then he turned and left.

Eggsy listened to the door shutting behind him and finally lifted his head from the tear-stained pillow to look after where he’d disappeared like one of his better dreams.

 *******

The nurse from that day – he had never caught her name – had left the hospital. He had asked about her, but received no clear answer, except that she had been transferred.

The bandage was removed a week later. His eye had been saved, just, but the scar-tissue surrounding it was impossible to hide. Harry visited him on the day, but he pretended to be asleep. He couldn’t sleep. He kept the side with the bullet hole firmly pressed against the pillow.

 *******

Harry visited him a few times after that and every time he pretended to sleep. Eventually Harry stopped coming.

 He sent him a rose, which the new nurse kindly put in a vase for him. The next morning the vase was found broken on the floor. The rose still lay on the table, unharmed, but one of the shards was missing. Amelia demanded he hand it back, and Eggsy listlessly fished it out from beneath his pillow. He’d only wanted to look at it really. Keep it there.

Without water the rose wilted after a few days. He liked it like that and kept it beside him.

*******

Michelle stood at the end of the hall, a little girl in tow, and stared at him for a moment. Then she gasped and let out a tiny sob that sounded like “Eggsy,” and ran to his bed. The little girl followed her, running as fast as her legs would allow, and not yet entirely sure who this strange person was. Her brother, yes… Eggsy… but what else? She stopped when she reached the bed, and looked at her mother. She wasn’t crying, and was holding his hand .

“I got shot mum,” he smiled weakly. Then he burst into tears, and mother leant down to cradle his head softly. His hands held tightly onto her arms, as though afraid that he might have to leave them again.

Suddenly the teary eyes turned to her and she became very shy and hid behind her mother. The face was pinched and sad and severe and had a large, glass-crack around the left eye that centred around a scabbed round tear. But it immediately smiled when it saw her and the cracks looked a little like extended laughter lines, so maybe he wasn’t that serious after all. It was a kind face and the teeth were just a little crooked – especially (she now remembered), on the left side, which she could see because the smile was so big. The eyes were still very tired though.

“Oh my days, look how big you’ve got,” said the face as though she was the most wonderful thing in the whole world.

The nose looked nice when it scrunched. And the voice seemed familiar. She clambered onto the bed to get a better look, and bent her head to the side, almost touching his cheek with soft fingers.

“Eggsy,” she beamed. “Found you again.”


	12. Brother

Eggsy was allowed to leave the hospital after a while, his mother and sister there to collect him. Harry never came back. Eggsy hadn’t expected him to.

*******

He moved into the London house, a room that he didn’t know, a bed that was unfamiliar. But it was warm, even if it wasn’t home.

He woke up on the first night to see his sister standing in the doorway, watching him.

“Are you having bad dreams?” she asked.

He nodded, still shaking, still sweaty and scared.

“Do you want me to stay with you?”

He hesitantly nodded again and she sprang onto the bed and snuck beneath the covers. Eggsy watched her, frightened by the sudden movements. But she was only a little girl. There was nothing really scary about her.

“You know I met a little girl. Just like you,” he said, as she lay down.

“Was she nice?” she whispered.

“Very. She was frightened, so I helped her. And the way that I helped her was to talk about you, about how much I missed you, and how much I was looking forward to seeing you again. I’ve missed you a lot.” The talking calmed his breathing, until he was only interested in telling her about that day. “There was a dog as well.”

“I want a dog,” she grumbled. “But mum says we can’t.”

He smiled at her, and lay down so that he could sleep again. “I’ll talk to mum, okay?”

“Goodnight, Eggsy. Sleep tight.”

“G’night love.”

He fell asleep almost immediately, but she stayed awake all night, steadfastly guarding him from the bad dreams.

 

Her brother hadn’t spoken much with mother since they had first seen each other again. Simply remained taciturn as she spoke about her job, home, the things they were going to do when he left the hospital. After arriving at the house he would say nothing to her that he didn’t have to. She wondered why Eggsy didn’t like speaking with her.

“I want a dog,” he began, and cursed himself for not saying it in a softer voice.

Michelle sat beside her and helped her with her homework. She didn’t look up, nor did she sound as though she had heard his tone. “Eggsy… baby, we’re not getting a dog.”

“I need it.” He couldn’t be gentle.

“Are you talking about you?” Michelle looked pointedly at her, and she understood that this was the time to leave the table and go to her room. She stayed and listened in the doorway.

“Yes.”

There was a sigh. “What do you need a dog for?”

Eggsy’s voice turned sad now. She wished it wasn’t so sad so often. “I used to have a dog.”

“No you didn’t.”

“With my unit.” Now it was angry again.

“… What happened to it?” Hesitant. She recognised it as fearful.

Something slammed on the table. His hands. “I don’t know. It survived, it died, it got shot, I don’t fucking know – “ she looked out to see that he was standing inches from her face, hands balled into shaking fists, eyes glazed.

“Stop,” she said from where she stood.

Eggsy turned around and left the room.

 

Michelle did not speak to him for a few days, unsure of what to say. Eggsy kept his temper under control, and didn’t bring up the subject again. The house would have been filled with the silence if she hadn’t returned every day from school and talked about what had happened, and every night she tiptoed into Eggsy’s room and fell asleep next to him.

 

Eggsy started to gain some weight and no longer appeared as gaunt and harrowed, but his eyes looked as though they were wider, deeper, lined - not belonging to a young man. The cracks in his head were vivid, in places a ghostly white, in others a seemingly permanently enflamed red.

One time she tried to touch them and he recoiled and grabbed her arm in a painful grip. She started to cry and he let go, horrified, apologetic.

She still came to his room that night even though he couldn’t sleep at all. She could always tell when he was pretending to sleep and so he submitted to telling her stories about dogs and gardeners and kings and secret agents and – at her insistence – added some princesses and large dragons.

 

In the beginning he only left the house when he had to go for check-ups. He never went out on his own, but mother walked him the fifteen minutes through the loud city and to the quiet of the doctor’s and waited for him when he came out again.

 

Mother had washed his uniform the first evening, and hung it nicely beside all his other new clothes. She had tiptoed inside his room to look at it, but he had thrown it in the back of his closet and not looked at it since.

 

A month after he had started to try and sleep in his own bed there came a notice. Mother told her all about it. He was to be awarded with a Victoria’s Cross for bravery in the war. He did not answer the summons. She asked him about it and he said that the king didn’t want to see him.

 

The medal was sent via messenger. He put it with his uniform.

 

The day before her birthday, she wanted to go for a walk with her brother. She begged and pouted, but he merely smiled and told her that he liked the house. She knew that he was lying, but he was also a lot bigger than her, so she couldn’t make him. At least she could touch him now, so she punched him on the shoulder and he gripped it in mock pain and then laughed. One day she would be stronger than all the boys, he said. She was going to have to be she decided, because her brother was apparently too stupid to do something without her pulling him along. She stubbornly decided to ask him every day until he said yes.

 

Her birthday came along and he handed her a present that he had made himself. A tiny dragon, made of paper folded together. It’s wings could flap. She told him that he had really clever fingers, and he hid them shyly behind his back.

 

Sometimes she saw him writing long letters, and he hid them beneath his pillows. She didn’t tell him that she knew. And she didn’t try to look at them.

 

She came home from school one day to find the house empty. She sat and waited for a long time while mother worked, and eventually he came home. He looked tired. She asked him what had happened and he only said that he’d taken a walk. She sulked. Without her? He hugged her close and said that he wouldn’t do it again.

She became less angry with him then and said that _maybe_ he could go on his own sometimes. He cried, just a little bit, so she kissed both of his cheeks, and he told her that he didn’t want to go on his own again. Could she maybe not tell mother? Of course not.

 

They took a walk together a week later. He looked down every time they passed somebody and in the end she realised that it was because they looked at the scars on his face. She glared extra hard at people to make them stop and they seemed to be a little ashamed. He shook beside her. After ten minutes they went home again and she made him a cup of tea.

 

They tried again when he was ready. She asked him every day, but not like she had before. He smiled and told her maybe tomorrow. And she’d ask again tomorrow, patiently.

 

He came to her one day and asked if she wanted to come with him to the doctor’s. She thought that maybe he and mother had argued again. They did that a lot. And then they pretended not to have anything to say to each other. But they were nearly never annoyed with her, unless she did something naughty, and even then Eggsy only grinned crookedly and said that if she didn’t do it again, he wouldn’t tell on her. From then on she went on all his walks to the doctor’s. Sometimes they would take tiny detours. He would invite her to an ice-cream and hold his arm out for her to hold. Eventually he stopped lowering his head quite so much.

 

“Maybe you can take your brother for a walk?” asked Michelle, her smile bright, and looking as though she was hiding something. Eggsy recognised that look from long ago.

She looked to Eggsy and the both of them shrugged and went outside. It was a nice walk. He smiled charmingly at passer-by’s, who seemed captivated by him. It was cold and her breath was dragon’s-breath.

After two hours and when her hands were cold even through her gloves, they went home.

They came home to find a piano in the tiny living-room. Michelle stood as he entered, smiling brightly and wringing her hands. “D’you want a cup of tea?”

She seemed to be shielding the piano with her body, in the terrified way that she had once done when it had been Dean standing in Eggsy’s place. Afraid of what he might do. Eggsy looked from her to it and back again, his face unreadable. He nodded slowly. “A cup of tea would be great mum. Thanks.”

She gave a single dry sob and shook her head, as if to rid herself of her fears. Eggsy crossed the room within a second and pulled her into a hug, arms wrapped around her tightly.

“I’m sorry,” she said, trembling in his arms.

“It’s alright mum. I love the piano.”

“Do you want to play it?” Michelle pulled back, composing herself. “I’ll go make a cup of tea.”

He squeezed her arm an extra time and went to sit behind the keys, placing his older clever fingers on them, carefully. Not moving. He kept them there for a few minutes. And then he started to play.

Michelle left to make the tea, and she moved from where she had stood in the doorway the entire time and sat down next to him, watching. Listening.

 


	13. Training

For a long time he didn’t play music that he knew, and when he did, the songs made him panic. Eventually Michelle bought the notes to several easy songs that he could teach his sister. She loved to play, he loved to teach. It became easier. He started to finish his own works, just for himself. Maybe a little bit for Harry as well.

He continued to write letters for him and kept them, pretending that Harry was reading them, knowing that he would never see him again, and finding some strange comfort in this definite knowledge.

Time didn't move again though, and he grew restless. Michelle told him to perhaps look for work, or to play his music for an audience, but both ideas terrified him. He didn't know what he could do that was worth anything anymore, and he didn't want the music to be for others.

He waited, not listlessly, but with a fear that he was doing something terribly wrong. While on the outside he was some shape of what he had once been, the inside of him curled into various forms that took turns begging him to do something with his life and tucking their tails between their legs, whimpering. He had no idea what parts of himself to listen to anymore.

Until suddenly, and with an odd feeling that it belonged in a story somewhere, everything changed again.

******* 

He was in the livingroom, his sister practicing an important dance recital for mother while he played a simple tune for her, when there was an unexpected knock on the door.

He opened it and a face that he remembered greeted him, looking slightly relieved to see him standing there. _Alive_ , might possibly have been what she was thinking. “Oh,” he said. “It was you who was the agent. Wouldnta guessed.”

“Why?” asked the petite woman, not exactly sharp, but hinting that she very much could be if he bothered her.

“Dunno,” answered Eggsy. “Figured you was too good at your job to be pretending. Was a bit sorry to see you go, thought I’d scared you off by trying to blow my brains out and screaming bloody murder every night.”

She looked unfazed, and a little like she might be about to say something unsettlingly helpful, but just then she saw the girl in the room behind him. She immediately smiled, and Eggsy instantly liked her, despite his better judgment. “I’m Roxanne,” she said to her. “What’s your name?”

She was too shy to answer and ran away, so Roxy turned back to Eggsy.

“Eggsy,” she said.

“You remember my name, great. Why?” asked Eggsy. He cursed himself for sounding so… so everything all the time. Talk about wearing your emotions on your sleeves, his were plastered to every piece of his skin like irremovable paint. _Was this… did Harry send you?_

“No. I’m here with a proposition. You did excellently during the war.”

“So did a lot of people.”

“You're different. You had the king worried about you. He trusts you,” she pointed out. "I've read a lot about you. I'm impressed. So I made you my candidate for a job."

“What are you talking about.” _Of course Harry didn’t send you._

“Kingsman. They’re known as the modern knights of the realm.”

Eggsy looked away again. “Galahad,” he murmured to himself. “Wouldn’t be right. Don’t have the _credentials_ to be a bloody gentleman spy.”

“Neither did I,” she said, and he was beginning to either love or hate how reasonable she was being.

“What do I have to do?” he asked, again not sure what about her made him feel so safe. She had saved his life and he still wasn't sure what for, but well… for him the question was almost an agreement already. “And that doesn’t mean I’m saying yes,” he said hurriedly.

“Of course not,” she smiled.

 *******

Merlin lined up the new recruits and glared at them, but Eggsy had the opinion that he was secretly the sort of pleasant man that he’d enjoy sharing a pint with at the end of the day. He wore _cardigans_ for goodness sake.

“You are about to embark on the most dangerous job interview in the world.”

Maybe the cardigans were a misdirection. Maybe he just was a bit of an arsehole. Eggsy decided then and there that he’d find out and asked him for a drink at the end of the first week. Merlin shrugged and said why not and he and Eggsy and Roxy spent the evening together at the local pub. Roxy – it turned out – was a lightweight and so the two of them half-carried her home and spent the night on her floor. The next day he awoke with a hangover and five hours later he jumped out of a plane.

He decided that he’d been completely right. Merlin was quite a pleasant sort of man. He was also an arsehole.

 ******

He continued to write letters to Harry, hiding them from the other candidates.

 _I’ve got to admit_   _that this is probably the best thing I’ve done since I first came back. Don't get me wrong, the piano was perfect and I've worked a lot out at home. There’s something about suddenly working for something though, after a long time where it felt as though there was nothing that I could do here anymore. They don’t tell you that. Afterwards you think it’s just about finding who you used to be again and picking up from there. You know I tried. I told you all about how that went. But I’m not who I used to be. It’s painful, but then again old me couldn’t do a lot of what new me can. Can’t tell you exactly what we’re doing, national security and all. I’ve already put far more in my letters to you than to the ones I send home, so count yourself special._

_I can’t help but remember some things from when it was all good. It pains me, but the more I look at it, the more it was just a dream. That sounds terribly cynical, doesn’t it? Sorry. I’m not trying to be down, I just think I’ve grown up. A little late, but there you are._

_At least you taught me to dance before it all went away. That’s come in handy here more than you would think. Apparently there’s a lot of this work that hangs in the balance of my dancing skills. They’re my second most charming feature I’ve been told._

_I think that who I am now is not completely hopeless after all._

_Also there are puppies._

_Yours_

_*******_

He was called to Merlin’s office, JC the Second in tow. He entered with some trepidation and Merlin looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “You didn’t knock,” he stated without any condemnation. Eggsy never was going to learn to knock, it seemed.

Eggsy cursed. “Sorry.”

Merlin beckoned him to sit and he did, sinking into the seat. Sitting straight was not something he would do unless the situation demanded it. After the first time they had gone drinking together, it appeared that Merlin would never constitute that kind of situation.

“Your test scores are excellent,” began Merlin. Eggsy winked at him. Merlin gave an inner eyeroll, but the truth was that he was astounded. He had never expected that the man from two years ago would ever be able to even participate in the necessary training, never mind reach this goal. There had been some reluctance on the first day upon seeing him, not at all sure that they weren’t about to break him down all over again. The scars on his face had been a reminder every day of where he had come from, what he was trying to achieve. On the other hand, the ease with which he assimilated every mission, every test, as though he had prepared for this his entire life… maybe fate had led him here all along. Merlin did not exactly believe in destinies, but this would be the best example of a journey that appeared pre-planned that he had experienced in his lifetime. Eggsy was meant to be here. Well, if he continued as he was now.

He handed him a gun. Eggsy took it without hesitation. And Merlin wondered for a brief second what kind of relationship to guns had enabled him to grip one with such certainty after everything he knew the boy had seen. Not a boy, he supposed. He rather hated to ask this of him, but it was no good to be soft now.

“Shoot the dog,” he said.

Eggsy’s expression hardened. He looked at JC the Second, who looked tiny and pitiful on the floor beside the chair. The gun did not move for longer than Merlin would’ve generally given a recruit. But then Eggsy’s expression softened into an apology and he pulled the trigger. the dog whined slightly at the loud, empty click.

“Well done,” said Merlin and held his hand out for him to give it back. Eggsy did so, breath heavy and tears in his eyes. Against all better judgment, Merlin felt as though he had gone too far. For this particular one, he shouldn’t have done this. He even berated himself for rationalising with himself that he wasn't Arthur. This was not in his hands.

He looked kindly at Eggsy. “Everything is fine,” he told him. “Take a few days off. Talk to Lancelot.”

Eggsy nodded and picked up JC, rushing from the room without asking if he’d been dismissed. Merlin wouldn’t comment on that either. He didn’t usually remember to ask if he could leave, and on this day he would definitely not appreciate the admonishment.

Merlin allowed himself to run his hands over his face, but then returned to his work.

 

Eggsy ran into Roxy just down the hall. She had been waiting for him, for once not collected and calm. “Did you…?” she asked.

Eggsy nodded, swallowing heavily to stop the breath caught in his throat. He had not been this near a panic for months, but he sat very suddenly on the floor and sobbed now. In between the heavy tears and the snot, he managed to gulp a tiny thank you. “Thanks for telling me…”

Roxy sat down beside him, spending equal time rubbing his arm softly and scratching JC behind the ear. “Don’t mention it,” she told him. “That test is bullshit. You don’t need it.”

 

Inside his office Merlin frowned and stopped working. _Would she…_ ? Surely not. And if she had told Eggsy about it, well… he wasn’t about to ask.

 *******

_God, Harry today was terrible. If you’d have been here you would have sided with me. That awful prat Piers got all of us lost on a scouting mission because he insisted that he was the best Russian speaker in our group. Turns out he’s not only shit at Russian, he’s also shit at being a team leader. We arrived at our retrieval point six hours late and were told to go for a nice run with the dogs for the next hour until we learnt left from right. I’m tired out of my skull._

_I read about you in the papers today. Very proud of you and all, keep it up. Get enough sleep though. I know you’re not getting enough sleep. Staying up and listening to the radio half the night isn’t good for you. Also I heard you’d taken up smoking. If I can go through an entire fucking war without smoking (more than a couple a day) then you can put them down in peacetime. It’s not good for your lungs I heard._

_You’re probably annoyed with me by now, but if I’m not worrying about you then who’s going to? Besides, you can’t complain when I’m right._

_Yours_

 

Eggsy beat Piers in hand-to-hand combat. If he accidentally broke his arm then it wasn't for the way that Piers had snidely called him a fairy after reading the last few lines of his latest letter. Those were fucking private, Eggsy had snarled and almost punched him there. He'd learnt something about self-restraint in the last few months.

He smiled as he helped him off the mat.

"Guess you got fairydust in your eyes? Why you couldn't see me coming?"

"Fuck off," whined Piers.

Eggsy shrugged and dropped him again. He landed on the arm and whimpered in pain. Eggsy left the ring.

Piers fell through under a week later.

*******

_Harry I miss you. So, so much. But you can be a bit proud of me now at last. I think I made it._

 

They stayed safely hidden away.

Nobody would ever read them again.

 *******

He was called to Merlin’s office one afternoon, several months later. He entered with a relaxed ease. The way that he carried himself these days bore a marked difference to who he had ever been before. Around Merlin he would probably always be more familiar than was generally encouraged between agents and their superiors.

“Late again Galahad,” said Merlin. “And you forgot to knock.” He’d made a decision to remind him every time. Maybe he’d figure it out eventually… he wasn’t counting on it.

Eggsy laughed easily, and slung himself across the chair in a casual sprawl that Merlin usually would have pointed out as well, but he liked to see the young man without his usual uneasiness. Besides, he could act like a gentleman when he put his mind to it and that was what mattered.

He studied him for a moment and decided to get straight to the point. ”Do you know why you received this opportunity Eggsy?”

He shook his head.

”It was because we looked for you for several months during the end of the war,” he said bluntly. Eggsy stayed silent. By now he recognised when Merlin was not done talking and tried not to interrupt. He tensed ever so slightly though.

Merlin continued, not heeding the change in the room. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I suppose that it won’t come as much of a surprise that Lancelot was detailed to find you after you were officially killed in action. She was to discover the truth and – if possible – rescue you from execution. None of us expected that you were still alive. Not even Harry, not for many months.” Eggsy couldn’t bite back a sharp sound at the mention of his name.

Merlin ignored it. “Lancelot spent many weeks in the immediate time after you came back from the dead to gather more information on you – she wanted to know who you were – “

“ – she could’ve asked.” Eggsy bit his tongue and slouched some more.

Merlin didn’t comment on the interruption. “She wanted to uncover your service records, because she had the fascinating notion that you might be an excellent addition to our ranks. You were an admirable soldier who went above and beyond duty several times and whom the king trusts with his life.”

Eggsy exhaled sharply. And couldn’t quite stop himself again. “He…” there were a lot of questions that started with that word. Merlin seemed to be able to hear most of them.

“He requested you for this job, yes. He wants to see you again, yes. And if you’re now internally tormenting yourself with thoughts of professional inadequacy, I wouldn’t be charging you with protecting the bloody king unless I thought you were qualified so stop that before you start – “ at Eggsy’s imminent protest he held up a hand to stop him. “-I _know_ your head. You’re not the hardest person in the world to read so for the love of God just spare me the objections.”

Eggsy looked as though he was bursting to speak so Merlin graciously waved at him to spit it out. “Am I gonna guard Harry? All the time? That’s… what this was about?”

Merlin smirked a bit, as self-satisfied as a particularly clever alley cat. “That’s the plan.”

“He… ?” asked Eggsy again. There were still so many questions. But there was one in particular, he suddenly realised, and he somehow didn’t want Merlin to answer it.

“He’s going to be there at your knighting.”

Eggsy stayed silent for a few moments. “Thank you,” he finally said.

“Thank Roxy.”

Eggsy nodded. “Uhm…”

“Yes?”

“Permission to leave? Sir?”

Would wonders never cease. The boy _had_ learned. Merlin inclined his head, a somewhat impressed expression on his face, and Eggsy immediately sprang up and half-sprinted out.

”Oh, and Eggsy…”

He stopped halfway out the door.

“We really need to see about getting you a proper suit.”

 

He ran to Roxy, who was at the firing range, and hobbled pathetically from foot to foot as she finished her set. She lowered her gun and turned inquisitively towards him, and was immediately bowled over as he hugged her tightly.

“Thanks, Rox,” he mumbled into her shoulder.

Roxy smiled softly. “Any time.”

Eggsy let go of her again and dug his hands deep into his pockets, suddenly self-conscious. “I talked to Merlin… about everything.”

She nodded. She had grasped that fact.

“I… I think I’ve been an idiot, Rox.”

“You are often, but go on.”

“I thought… when I came back… thought that I’d fucked it all up. With Harry. Nothing was real for a long time before you propositioned me, it was just one day after the next and they were all the same...” he appeared breathless, frantic.

Roxy put a hand on his shoulder, grounding him. “You had to pass psych tests before we were allowed to approach you,” she said, apologetically.

“I know that, I’m not blaming you. I’m still, I’m not… I’ll never be the same as I was before, but I can _think_ now again, about the future. I haven’t been able to see that for so long… especially not with him.” He stopped again, breathing calmed. “I haven’t seen him for years. Not really since before the war. And how I was in the hospital, I’m so different. Dunno if he’ll even recognise me. He never saw…” he faltered.

Roxy’s touch moved from his shoulder to grip him lightly on either side of his face, stroking it softly. “You’re the same. He did all of this for you. He looked for you after the war. He helped your mother and sister. He and I and Merlin believed that you could be a Kingsman. He made damn well sure that you were prepared for this. He’s waited for a very long time to see you again.”

“He loves me?” Unbelievable. True?

“He fucking must,” smiled Roxy.

“He loves me,” Eggsy repeated.

It was no longer a question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is that, you say. An ENTIRE chapter with minimal to no angst. Well done us for sticking this far and finally getting a taster of what we deserve. Albeit with no Harry. *sighs* not everything can be perfect, yet.
> 
> Also did anyone really think he'd shoot JC the Second?


	14. Knight

They had done a lot of walking, thought Eggsy. He had been shabbily dressed then, in the clothes his mother had patched, while Harry had worn what were possibly his cheapest suits. He had tried, and that had made Eggsy even more self-conscious.

He had accidentally on purpose jumped in puddles, pulled him into the muddy grass and made him dirty. He had purposefully muddied the clothes that Harry bought for him as well. Never was – as Harry always said – a true connoisseur of suits.

He had preferred to let Harry buy them for him and then come up with new and interesting ways of destroying them. Apparently Harry had never caught on that he'd never felt particularly comfortable wearing them. Although he had liked to take them on and off while he'd watched, very aware of how good they'd made him look.

 

In the mirror now, with Kingsman standard issue glasses partly hiding his scar and a tailored, black pinstripe, he smiled. It was a different smile to the many that he had borne in his life, both before and during the war. It seemed… more confident. Or a different kind of confidence to the stubbornness and lack of preservation that had once masked his insecurities. And he did _feel_ confident. It suited him, this confidence. He looked… older. Calmer. He was maybe going to be okay. Everything might be okay.

He walked out of the dressing room and was greeted by Merlin.

“Looking good Eggsy.”

His smile gained a little of its old mischievous glint, as he affected a pretentious Queen’s English. “Feeling good. Merlin.”

 *******

The first time Harry had met Eggsy, he had been little more than a boy. A charming, seductive, persuasive and highly intelligent boy, but still so very young. Harry had thought _oh,_ and that feeling had been hard to understand for the longest time.

In between then and now, Harry had met Eggsy many times. From a nineteen year old who had been running from the people that held him down, to twenty, twenty-two, twenty-three, when the two of them had been flailing, juggling who they were meant to be and who they were when they were together, as though those were two inherently different things.

People had hurt Eggsy and abandoned him and told him to be many different somethings at once, and Eggsy had tried to be them all and hated it. Harry knew that he had accidentally been one of those people, although maybe the thing that had kept Eggsy from beginning to hate him had been because he’d done it out of love. That would never have stopped him from leaving, eventually. Harry had always known that deep down… and when Eggsy had been told to go to war, he had done it, and…

 

When Harry had met Eggsy in 1945, he had been a broken man. He had returned from the war at the age of twenty-eight, but it had felt to Harry as though he had been speaking with an old man.  Harry had removed himself from his life, because Eggsy hadn't needed him or wanted to talk to him anymore. He had not seen him since he had left the hospital and until he'd had the desperate plan to indict him into Kingsman he had thought that they would never see each other again. Before Roxy had showed up at Eggsy's door, there had been a long silence between them, but with his agreement to try out for recruitment a fragile thread suddenly reconnected the two of them again, although he'd known that it could be broken every day that Eggsy was tested.

It had been… over a year now. He had done all that he could to stay away, all that he could to let Eggsy choose if what he wanted was… what Harry was offering.

 

Harry finally saw him again at the official ceremony. This stranger that had once been many things, but now was new again, a little worn, sharper, with added scars, and with things inside him that would never leave and often return him to who he had been eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one year ago. But on that day, on one knee, and officially knighted, Harry’s heart might have stopped for all the love that he felt for him, and for the way that he desperately wished to be allowed to know him again.

Eggsy did not look at him as he said the words _by the power vested in me_ nor did he look up after the sword had touched both of his shoulders.

Harry knew traditions, but a sign? A smile? _Anything?_ He needed to know.

And then Eggsy lifted his head a fraction, looked him in the eyes at last… _and winked._

 _Cheeky bastard,_ thought Harry, and smiled, a tiny, hidden twinkle that could barely be seen. He might still be the king. But now Eggsy was a Kingsman.

Maybe everything was going to be okay.

 

Harry walked to his room at the end of the day. He had had many official and tedious things to do following the knighting of the newest member of Kingsman, and he’d done them with the kind of grace and tact that he would never have believed himself capable of only a few years ago. His mind had spun impatiently with all the possibilities that lay ahead, and all the doubts that told him that it would all go wrong.

Eggsy was being endowed with the duties that he now possessed, an actual knight of the realm. Harry did not know what that minor ceremony entailed, but he assumed that if the rest of the Kingsmen were involved, a lot of drinking. He wouldn’t see him again until at least tomorrow. He could wait until tomorrow. He could wait one more fucking day.

The door seemed to shut the day’s events away and he allowed himself to breathe again, loosening his tie and beginning to unbutton his jacket in a small attempt to rid himself of the claustrophobia. A drink was up next.

“Harry?”

He looked up, startled but immediately recognising the voice. Eggsy stood by the window, hands nervously in his pockets, face tense. The silence between them was a terrible fear of what the next few seconds would bring.

Then Harry could no longer stand it and crossed the room, immediately drawing him in with his arms tightly around his waist, almost lifting him from the floor. Eggsy responded by wrapping around Harry’s neck and burying his head in his shoulder.

Neither said anything, and Harry was a little afraid of letting go. Every tiny thing that happened between them – their eyes meeting, speaking, holding each other – felt as though it might be the last time they were allowed, or like any sudden movements could rupture the fragility of the moment.

“God Eggsy, I thought I’d somehow dreamt it all,” mumbled Harry, feeling the weight in his hands.

Eggsy laughed easily and finally looked at him. “You look tired Harry,” he frowned, stepping back and releasing his hold. Harry did the same, studying him properly now.

“It’s been a long day. Weren’t you meant to be celebrating?” He felt touch starved already. He shouldn’t have rushed to him like that, not when he hadn’t been allowed to even hold his hand the last time that they had spoken. Still, Eggsy had snuck into his room at the dead of night. Neither of them were making clear-headed decisions apparently.

He shrugged. “We did. But then Merlin… I think he noticed that I was a bit impatient. He gave me the key to your room.” He held it up demonstratively, before slipping it back in his pocket.

“That’s a little presumptuous of you,” smiled Harry. “I don’t know if my advisers would want me to be protected by somebody with such a defiantly singular attitude to the correct way of doing things.”

“And what would be the correct way of doing things?” asked Eggsy. He took a small step forward, innocently suggestive.

“Perhaps, before we do anything else that could be deemed irresponsible, I should invite you to dinner. That would be the gentlemanly thing to do. Like old times.”

Eggsy grinned broadly. “Yes, Harry.”

Harry didn’t move. Continued to examine all of him that he could see. His eyes had fallen several times upon the left side of his face already, but he could also see a place on his other side where the hair partly covered another bullet graze. He absorbed the image of Eggsy’s stance, his sureness, the distinctness of his cheekbones, dimples, the familiar and the unfamiliar all combined to make him more stunning than he could ever remember him being before.

Eggsy suddenly became very self-conscious and looked casually out of the window, hiding the majority of the scars. “Maybe you wanna sleep, that’d be better. You _are_ tired Harry. I’ll still be here in the morning.”

His hands fidgeted, but then Harry took them gently in his own and dared to almost kiss his cheek. An inch away, he whispered: “You look gorgeous darling. Now please let me have dinner with you.”

A heartbeat, two, three… “Yeah alright.” His face when he turned to look at Harry was relaxed again. Harry ran small circles on his hands with his thumbs, savouring them. Their texture was… so different, again. The miniscule bumps and angles that he had felt the last time were still there, but now they were supple again, stronger, calm.

He ordered dinner to his room. A part of him wanted to tell Eggsy to hide, but he saw the pointed way that the younger man positioned himself so that he could easily be seen the minute somebody walked in through the door. It reminded him that he had a right to be here, albeit a somewhat arguable right, seeing as he wasn’t actually employed until tomorrow.

The butler very professionally didn’t comment on Eggsy’s presence, only to ask where the two gentlemen would be sitting. Harry told him that they wouldn’t be needing extra chairs. They could eat it standing. They had business to discuss and that was always best done standing.

The minute that the man had left, he and Eggsy sat on the bed, bringing the food with them.

Harry removed his jacket at last, then his tie, before going to work on the top buttons of his shirt. He let it stay like that.

“Please don’t stop on my account,” smirked Eggsy, deliberately letting his eyes wander from where Harry’s hands had left off their work and enticingly into Harry’s eyes.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Is every conversation with you a continuous innuendo,” he said, before he slowly sucked at his index finger where some honey had stuck to it. There was really no need for subtlety at this point. And it earned him another of those long pined-for, carefree laughs.

“Jesus Harry, I don’t know. Maybe if you stopped leading me on I’d be able to fully develop into an upstanding gentleman.” His voice took on his favourite posh mannerism. “We could have long conversations about polo and tax-returns and the fucking weather, if you’d prefer?”

“Not bad,” Harry conceded.

“I’m chuffed old chum,” grinned Eggsy.

Harry groaned. “A little rough on the edges though.”

Eggsy tutted to himself. “Never get the bloody _in-flec-tion_ right on _fucking,”_ he admitted.

“You’ll have to keep practicing that then,” Harry laughed.

Eggsy smiled, almost to himself. “I will if it makes you laugh.” He finally abandoned the pretentious drawl and began to eat.

 

Their conversations continued along the same insignificant path, both circling innocently around how much they had waited for this meeting, everything that had happened, what was going to happen now – both immediately after dinner and in the coming days, weeks, months. This was not the time to talk about important matters. This was the time to find out if they still loved the trivial things.

This was them almost pretending that they had only just met and that everything that had stood between them in the past was – for the night – forgotten.

 

Very much later Eggsy yawned. “I think… I’ve gotta leave. I have work tomorrow.”

Harry stood and almost didn’t say: “You could…?”

It was the closest to asking where they stood with one another that either of them had gotten. _You could stay here?_

Eggsy shook his head. “I’m not supposed to be here in the first place. I just… wanted to see you.” He stopped as though he’d said too much, but when Harry didn’t interject, he continued. “I guess a part of me thought you were dead and it refused to believe me when I kept saying you weren’t. I wanted to shut that piece up. It’s been talking to me for too long. But I can’t… stay.” He looked guilty.

He nodded. “You don’t have to. There’s no hurry.”

“Right,” Eggsy let out a tiny puff of almost unbelieving laughter. “There’s no hurry this time.”

He allowed Harry to walk him to the door and watched him, entertained, as he glanced to the left and right to make sure that nobody was around.

“Remember Harry, I’m a trained spy now. I’ll be fine,” grinned Eggsy. “I can sneak in and out of your palace easily. Actually…” he frowned. “There are a couple of security holes that you should address.”

“Not now though,” Harry reminded him.

“Not now.” Eggsy leaned against the doorframe, looking sheepish and young. “Uhm. Goodnight?”

Harry considered so many possibilities, everything he wanted to do at once, but he reminded himself again that there was no hurry this time. He took Eggsy’s hand in his and held it up to his mouth, merely touching it with his lips before lowering it again. “Goodnight,” he smiled.

Eggsy blushed and nodded with a mix of awkwardness and triumph. “This time it ain’t me being forward, just like to say that as a note to how much I’ve grown as a person.”

“You’re much improved in the delicacy and tact department, you can be very proud,” Harry said, deadly serious before he smiled again. “But you’ve still got a filthy mouth.”

Another nod, another wink.

And then Eggsy sauntered down the hall and around the corner, vanishing as suddenly as he had appeared.

Harry closed the door and carefully removed the tray off the bed. The lingering scent of him was everywhere, like a reminder that it hadn’t been a hallucination.

He threw himself on the bed and fell asleep immediately, with the tantalising promise that he would see him again tomorrow.

He dreamt of warm summers and apples.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the most self-indulgent fluff. Tomorrow is self-indulgent as well, but in a different way. You know, I almost feel as though I'm in some surreal state of mind whenever I read this chapter, because everything that's happened... and then this sudden attack of "oh wow, people can be happy. I can let people be happy."


	15. Valentine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I was going to be indulgent in this chapter. Yeah, I was wrong about that. Things changed, things were moved around and added and now this is mostly angst again. Oops. Two chapters from now is the thing that I meant, I hope. But this was also fun. Or...

Eggsy had been gone for almost two weeks, investigating a threat. It was his job, Harry knew, but it was hard, knowing that he was putting himself in danger for Harry’s sake. Especially hard knowing that he had brought him back only to push him back into the risks involved when protecting him. He felt… selfish.

Especially selfish to know that he didn’t want Eggsy to die before he could kiss him again. That what he had strange almost-nightmares about had everything to do with Eggsy beneath him, breathless, whimpering his name, and nothing to do with what would have to be told to his mother – again – if he died.

 

They hadn’t had a night like the first one since he had first started working for him. They had talked, yes, but only in the company of others and never about the things that Harry really wanted to talk about. He had a habit of waiting up to see if he would sneak back into his room, but he hadn’t returned, nor could Harry ask him to spend the night while surrounded by servants. The palace made him paranoid.

They had touched. He shook his hand every morning when he went down to start his official duties, and when they stood next to each other their elbows brushed. One time he had been reading through a speech and Eggsy had come up behind him and stood with one hand resting on the table, and the other on his shoulder. Their faces had been so close that Harry could have kissed his cheek.

He felt ridiculous for cataloguing these moments, but beyond that all that the two had shared for the last two months had been smiles and the occasional walks. And on the walks Harry had refrained from mentioning anything that pertained to where they stood with one another. He knew exactly why he was afraid to ask.

When he fantasised these days, he dreamt of seeing Eggsy outside of their professional relationship. Of seeing him in the mornings when his hair was dishevelled and sticking up on the sides, with bleary eyes and annoyed groans, of long, pointless walks with him, of getting lost from the world, of slowly unravelling him, first removing his clothes and then his perfect composure. He dreamt of touching every part of him, slowly and reverently, so that he could relearn who he was. He wanted to see the Eggsy that emerged when they were on their own. Which they had only been _sodding once._

At least they still had dinner almost every evening. It was no longer in his room, but he insisted that all dinners that didn’t involve any delegations or senators were to be shared between them. It was an odd dance of not being able to say everything that he wanted, and wondering what exactly Eggsy was thinking. Whether he was as frustrated as Harry was.

He loved waking up and knowing that he was there though. That he could see him most days for the rest of his life, if Eggsy didn’t quit his employment. It was nice enough to know that he was alive, and close to him.

 

They hadn’t discussed the past except one time when Eggsy had murmured into his ear “I can see now why it used to be so bloody difficult for you to come see me.” They hadn’t been able to talk any more about it, because they had just rounded the corner and entered the king’s next press meeting.

The tabloids appeared to be in love with his new bodyguard. He hadn’t thought about it, but obviously he wasn’t the only one to notice that Eggsy was young and dashing, and a hero. Perhaps he was covered in physical memoirs of the past war, but they only served to make him even more appealing to gossip. They naturally uncovered as much of his past as they could, speaking with old neighbours and suddenly the country knew things about Eggsy’s childhood that was none of its business. Eggsy handled the questions with charm and ease, both the ones that concerned the war and the ones from before.

He managed to not say a direct word about either.

It was odd, seeing their names and pictures beside each other in the papers and realising that nobody cared. Not that anyone knew. Not that there was even anything going on to know about, except for this strange new game that existed between them of friendly conversation about nothing at all, and the reminders that Eggsy constantly gave of how best to ensure his safety.

He decided that he was going to change that.

“I am going to the countryside,” Harry announced one morning after they had greeted each other with a handshake – _God, if he could touch more than his hands, but they still sent a strange jolt down his body every time he did._ _Just that he was allowed to so openly shake his hand._

“Oh? It isn’t in your official schedule.” Eggsy cocked his head to the side, looking awfully young for a second.

“I’m cancelling all my plans for tomorrow. I don’t need any escort. Just my guard.”

Harry looked at him carefully, trying to discern any reaction, but he remained perfectly professional. “What time will we be leaving then?” he asked.

“At noon.”

 

The following morning, after their handshake, Eggsy regretfully said “I can’t go with you today. There’s been a threat made to your safety and I have to leave for a few weeks to ascertain the seriousness of it, and if possible neutralise the source.”

“Oh,” said Harry. “Why you?” he immediately felt stupid.

Eggsy smiled apologetically. “It’s my job.”

Percival arrived an hour later and replaced him with a good luck. After Eggsy had left, Harry cancelled his trip and was annoyed at everybody for the next two days.

On the third he planned a new excursion for a few days after Eggsy returned.

 

When he received an announcement that he was delayed, he did nothing. At first. Then he cancelled again and visited Merlin.

“He’s late. He was meant to be back two days ago.”

“There were complications. We’ve sent in Lancelot and Tristan.”

He was about to argue, but Merlin stopped him with an unimpressed look.

“It’s a _precaution_ Harry. It doesn’t mean that anything has gone wrong. We’re following official procedures, that’s all.”

Harry suddenly couldn't calm the fears. “I made a mistake, giving him this job.”

“You gave him an opportunity, a choice. He makes his own decisions.”

“And if they kill him?”

Merlin sighed sympathetically. “He isn’t going to die. Nobody has him.”

“He might. I spent such a long time thinking he was dead and then trying to get him back and now I’ve killed him all over again. Shit, what if he’s hurt, what if he's going through what he did… he hasn’t ever told me about how it was, I shouldn’t have - ”

Merlin gripped his shoulders tightly. “Harry! Eggsy is fine. Nod if you believe me."

Harry nodded. But didn't say that he believed him.

*******

Eggsy woke up, groggy from the sedative. The room around him spun like he was on a roundabout and he felt just as sick. It smelt damp and rotten and the dark around him only served to make him feel more exhausted. He tried to slowly move different parts of his body. His feet were tied to the chair, but he could feel his toes, his ankles, everything worked fine. His hands were tied behind him, all his fingers moving and –as far as he could tell in this state – unharmed. He turned his head and his stomach lurched unpleasantly.

The smell really wasn’t helping. He blinked heavily, trying to rid himself of the tiredness, but only succeeded in making the room twirl faster than before. Shit, shit, shit.

He tried to breathe, but it only made him feel worse, and finally he vomited on the ground next to him. The taste was appalling, but he felt somewhat better. Wonderful. Now he could concentrate on the slowly-building headache and how he had a bit of sick stuck to his lips. He spat on the ground and that made him feel a bit better, somehow.

He blinked a few tears from his eyes that had accumulated from a mix of fatigue and the retching, and at least was more awake now. His mind unfortunately had started to race, bringing with it the edges of panic, but he swallowed it down, beneath the training and the rush of ideas for how to get out. He was prepared for this.

He was fine.

 *******

Galahad had been missing for five days. Lancelot and Tristan had reported back that he had not turned up at the scheduled extraction point, nor had he called in to say where he was. Merlin neglected to tell Harry, and kept his official statement to “ _the mission is extended for another week.”_

He avoided actually speaking to Harry, because he was fairly certain that the man would either try to kill him or nervously harangue him with questions until he snapped into madness.

Lancelot went to his last known address, while Tristan scouted out the area in which he had last communicated with head office.

“He left with an attractive woman,” Tristan reported from his findings.

All Lancelot had to convey was “shit.”

Merlin took that to mean that she knew exactly who had Galahad.

 *******

 _Okay,_ thought Eggsy. By now they ought to know where he was. By now he also ought to be dead, but for some reason he wasn’t, which meant that he could continue to do exactly what he was doing. Which was to find out as much as possible about the woman that was keeping him captive. Granted, actually allowing himself to be captured had not been his first plan, but he’d decided that it might be the best way to get them off their guard. He’d made this decision when he’d woken up to discover that he had, in fact, been captured. So far it was working very well. They hadn’t tortured him, which was a definite upside. Well, they had hurt him when he'd been tied to the chair, before they'd moved him to... hopefully where he thought he was. They hadn't allowed him to wash away the blood from his face, change his dirtied clothes, or even brush his teeth. He was trying not to think about it too much though, not now. Fear wouldn't help him.

The woman clearly knew some things about him, although not about Kingsman - unless she wasn't telling him everything, and his breath clenched when he thought of his mother and sister. She'd never mentioned them, he reminded himself over and over. She knew that he was employed directly by the king and that he therefore had intimate secrets about him. She hadn’t so much asked him this as stated it the last time she had been in the room. She had more or less admitted to luring him to Zürich via the "fake" threats to the king, although she hadn't told him why. It made him feel a bit better about being captured though. He considered asking Merlin if the next time he was asked to investigate something, it would involve somebody who hadn't seen his face in the papers. Not that he was supposed to even be a spy. His job was to protect the king... this involved the king. He would do whatever it took to protect Harry.

He didn’t actually know how long he had been here. Only that he wasn’t being fed very well again and it was giving him shakes that he couldn’t quite get rid of.

He also felt cold all the time, despite the room itself being relatively warm, but he staved off the actual panic by being as smug and bored as possible. He could think about the things that actually scared him when he returned home.

She entered the room with an entourage of soldiers with guns, and smiled pleasantly. “My associate would like you to know that he is very impressed by your loyalty. And that it might be time to inform you of our intentions.”

Eggsy had stood from the mattress that was the single piece of furniture in the room, trying to look as dignified as possible while wearing an unwashed suit and trying to hide his faintly jittery hands. He said nothing, but glared at her.

She returned with a threatening smirk. “Would you like to have dinner with the two of us? So that we can discuss our business proposal.”

“What is this?” he asked.

“It’s dinner.”

Eggsy shrugged. “I am hungry.” At least he wasn’t lying. “What do I call your… associate?”

“Valentine,” she said, her French lilt growing fond. “My men will return presently to escort you. I am afraid that I have some business to attend to and may be late.” Her feet clicked against the floor as she left the room.

He was alone again.

 *******

There were numerous bodies scattered across the floor around them, enemies neutralised. Roxy looked at Robin with a nod as he covered her entrance to the next room.

“Clear,” she whispered, and he followed her. The cold of the room caused their breaths to take shapes, and they swiftly moved from body to body, checking if any of them were Eggsy. The morgue was eerily silent after the shootout at the main entrance. Eggsy wasn’t there, but the bodies on the slabs would still need to be checked for suspicious deaths, despite the funeral home being a legitimate business.

There were ten of them altogether, all with their eyes closed and covered with paper towels.

Roxy had a feeling as though they were all about to come to life and recollected face after face of dead people that she’d had to look at on papers and piled together like they were rubbish. They brought back the ones that she remembered the best. A girl who could have been fifteen, could have been ten with how shrunken her face had been. A woman who had been badly beaten, who’s eyes might as well already have belonged to a corpse. A man, or had that been a woman as well... So many that she could see so clearly unless she forced them away from her mind. She couldn't think of them now. She spent so much time mourning them already, but now she had to think of Galahad.

“I hate morgues,” she muttered.

 *******

Eggsy stumbled into the man next to him, who caught him and pushed him upright, looking a little disgusted.

The six of them had handcuffed him before guiding him through a hallway and up a flight of stairs. They were half-leading, half-shoving him past numerous church pews towards a small door that led to a garage. He had been right, he thought, relieved. He was being held in the buildings that the organisation had been using as a front. First a funeral home, then a large storage area, and at the back a church. It seemed rather dramatic to him, but then again, Kingsman acted as a tailorshop during its daytime hours. Perhaps spies just had a habit of dramatics.

Suddenly somebody came running up and whispered something in the ear of the person in charge. He looked at Eggsy with the kind of look that was very easy to read, and then he turned towards him and pointed his gun at his head.

Eggsy stretched his hands before him in surrender and fell forwards, grabbed his captor's gun from his hands and shot the first four of them in quick succession before they’d even realised that his hands were no longer handcuffed. He’d snitched the key for them when he’d tripped.

He ducked behind the seats as gunshots rained down on him and then stood casually in the brief pause in the fire and shot another one of them.

Just the last man left. The one who had brought the order to execute him. The man promptly threw his gun to the ground and held his hands up in surrender. He looked terrified as Eggsy stalked coldly towards him and fell to his knees.

“It was just orders… two agents were on the way and we were told that the message would be better sent via fear as a precursor to negotiation,” he babbled.

Eggsy picked up the man's gun on the way and knelt beside him, close to his face. “This...” he said, showing him his previous weapon, “is a fucking six-shooter.”

He stood again. The seventh man cowered before him, pitifully pleading. Tiny.

Eggsy didn’t hesitate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I will try my best but I'm going to a party tomorrow and since there are a few changes to things that I want to write for the next couple of chapters (in the sense that I'm making it a chapter longer possibly, probably, depending on how much I'm adding), I MIGHT not have it up until the day after tomorrow. I'm sorry *hides under my blanket*


	16. Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for being so late, but the last couple of days were suddenly awful and stressful (except for the party, that was quite nice). But... it's done... here's the chapter... Hopefully it makes up for being late.

Upon his return Eggsy was requested by the king, and after a speedy medical and report - during which Roxy stood beside him and silently tried to comfort him, he found himself outside his office. It was closing on midnight when he knocked and entered.

There was a heavy, stifling silence in the room, that to Harry sounded as though a lot of people were listening to them in secret. Waiting for them to slip up, for one of them to say something that was more than just… what they were allowed to be.

He wanted to rush to him, wanted to touch every piece of him to make sure that he was okay, to chastise him for leaving him, to apologise for chastising him, and then to hold onto him for as long as it took to make up for the lost time. He did none of these things. He stared at him, at his face that was dark with bruising, the swelling going down, but the cuts vivid, and balled his hands into fists. He _couldn’t_ do anything. What if somebody found out?

The rest of his composure stayed in place, with only a tightening around his lips to indicate that he was anything but calmly observing the man from behind his desk.

Eggsy shuffled uncomfortably in front of him, like a schoolboy waiting to be reprimanded. His face took on a resentful challenge that reminded Harry of the first time they’d met. Except this time it was closed off and hostile, rather than ready to turn into a smile at any time.

Harry wanted to stand, at least. To make this less formal.

They were alone, although the paranoia that behind every door there stood an angry mob just waiting for them to say – do something wrong grew every second.

Harry stayed seated.

“Do you know why I requested a meeting with you?” he asked, calmly refusing to allow any emotional inflection to rest on the words.

Eggsy grimaced. “Bollocksed the mission.”

“You didn’t. You furthered the investigation into a dangerous individual that nobody knew the name of until your involvement.” Harry stood, finally. He could do this. “I just… wanted to tell you that you did a good job.” That’s all he wanted to say. He couldn’t stop staring at the bruises and cuts in front of him.

“Got myself captured.”

“You were compromised from the beginning. You were the target.” He wanted to say…

“Lost the main suspect.”

“Stop it,” said Harry. Opened his mouth to finally say…

“I killed someone,” said Eggsy, without looking at him. His voice stayed passive. Harry recognised it though. He knew all the different ways that Eggsy tried to hide his feelings, had uncovered them years ago. He was on the edge of breaking.

Harry always found himself wrong-footed when this sort of thing happened. Eggsy could be such an intricate language to read that although he pored over him, trying to decipher the writings of his mind, he nearly never could prepare for the moments when he said the words that actually meant something.

He had thought that Eggsy had been upset about the mission itself. About being captured and hurt. He was, yes, but the last sentence… it had wounded him to say it. As though he hadn’t admitted that he’d done it before that moment. The flinch at the words had Harry walking to him and stopping awkwardly in front of him, still not daring to touch him.

The walls seemed to have eyes, ears, and pulsating heartbeats as well. Alive with suspense.

Now that he was there, his mind couldn’t think. He could only open his mouth… “You’ve killed people before?” Harry immediately regretted it. This was territory that he knew he wasn’t welcome in.

Eggsy didn’t appear to have noticed the slip, or he was too far gone to care. He hadn’t looked at Harry since he’d said the words, and now he gave a shaky laugh that bordered on a sob. “I’ve never killed somebody like that before. Never for those reasons. I thought I was… protecting you. But it’s not… it’s why I did it, but I felt. Good. Like I was allowed to finally… I wanted to.” He finished, almost in a whisper. “I’ve never wanted to kill anyone before. Not even when… but it’s like all I could see was every time I thought I was about to die.”

He still didn’t seem to be present in the room. His eyes were darting around looking for exits and his whole body shook as though he was standing in a snowstorm.

Harry wanted to… “Eggsy can I…?” The mob leaned on the doors, prepared to storm the castles, - "Eggsy, can I touch you?” – to point their fingers, to sharpen their knives and howl their condemnation…

He slowly placed his hands on either side of Eggsy’s face, and drew his thumbs in small circles over his cheeks, barely touching him, giving him the option of pulling away. “Eggsy. Look at me.”

Eggsy immediately leaned into the touch, but he couldn’t stop shaking, nor would his gaze settle.

Harry moved one hand down to grip his shoulder, steadying him. Continued to gently say his name and slowly cradle his head with the other. He didn’t try to force him and waited until Eggsy slowly slipped into the present again. Caught his tears on his thumb as Eggsy finally allowed himself to crumble and grasped onto Harry for support, like a dying man allowed a last chance.

He lowered the both of them to the floor, so that Eggsy wouldn’t fall, and held onto him for a long time as he continued to choke broken syllables and half-sentences, soothingly caressing him and comforting him.

After an impossibly long time the frenzy subsided into an exhausted, shallow breath. Harry waited for him, ignoring the lack of feeling in his own legs with a stubborn vague annoyance that they could choose this moment to act so selfishly.

Eggsy stayed wrapped in Harry’s arms. His breathing was raspy. “I’m sorry. That was unprofessional.”

“Perfectly alright. I habitually cry in front of the foreign secretary to remind him that I’m only human,” murmured Harry and Eggsy hiccupped.

He resumed: “You don’t ever need to apologise to me. For anything. My dear…”

Eggsy looked up at him. His face endeavoured successfully to appear teasingly suggestive, despite the red puffiness around his eyes and the sharpness of his newly-gained injuries. “Oh, so that’s come back now, has it? If I’d known that all it took for you to say that to me again was my completely cracking, I’d have gotten myself caught by international anarchists a lot sooner.”

Harry frowned. “That’s not funny. I was worried.”

Eggsy sat up on his knees and gently held his hands. Harry had the brief relief of blood rushing back into his lower extremities, before the pain of pins and needles accompanied it. He ignored it all in favour of following every movement of Eggsy’s face, the way that it opened into a vulnerable sincerity before he spoke. Finally coming out of the hiding place of his own words. It made Harry’s chest ache with affection.

“I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to hurt you – “

“No, stop. None of this was your fault. Nothing… nothing has ever been your fault.” Now that he felt as though he was allowed to speak, he wanted him to know everything at once. “I was too much of a coward to try to fight for it before, and I was too afraid of what you thought to do anything after, but that was because of me. I never even asked you what you wanted, from us. I just… I wanted to keep you and then I was afraid to have you and now…” he breathed heavily. Once. Twice. “I’ve got this last chance.”

The freedom to say what he wanted ended just as suddenly, like a faucet turning off. He couldn’t ask him now. Not when he was in this state. It wasn’t fair.

Eggsy – always so much better at reading the underlying sentences – didn’t react at first. Didn’t move. Then he placed a hand on his cheek, making him shiver. “The chance to do what?”

“To ask you…” the words wouldn’t pronounce themselves. The situation wasn’t right, they were both too tired, he was still too afraid to know what Eggsy thought… “to ask you to stay…” he settled for. Allowing Eggsy to decide what they meant, and trying not to pay attention to the clutching of his chest.

Eggsy’s face softened into a tired smile. “I can stay for the night.” He stood and offered Harry a hand, pulling him up and wincing slightly.

“What is it?” asked Harry.

Eggsy shook his head. “I’m just a bit battered here ‘an there. Nothing that won’t heal.”

“Come to the bed,” said Harry firmly. Now that they had already passed the boundaries that Harry had set for himself, he found that he didn’t much care what anybody thought.

“Bit sudden,” joked Eggsy, but Harry just rolled his eyes and pulled him out into the hall and to his room, without paying any attention to whether or not anybody was watching them. Eggsy looked nervously around though, but said nothing.

Harry sat him down on the edge of the bed. “This would be easier without the jacket,” he told him, and Eggsy promptly took it off, along with the gun holster. Harry took off his jacket as well.

He carefully moved his hands from the edges of his hair, down the nape of his neck, across his shoulders and down the creases and edges of his back. He avoided any places that Eggsy told him were badly bruised and focused on removing the tension from everything that had happened in the last few days. Eggsy allowed himself to be taken care of, not complaining often if Harry found a particularly knotted spot.

 The two talked about gardening.

It was something that they remembered from the past, gardening. A way to talk about it again, without really talking about it. Harry wondered whether they would get there eventually. At least after the effects of the last mission had worn off a bit, lost their sting. They would be able to finally speak freely again. They had time, he kept reminding himself.

He involuntarily yawned and Eggsy turned around and said that it was time for bed.

Eggsy allowed him to carefully wrap his arms around him as they had many times before, but with a new feeling of privilege, of relief, at being allowed to experience it one more time. Perhaps tomorrow would return to exactly what it had been thus far.

Perhaps tomorrow would be different.

Perhaps…

Harry fell asleep to the word “ _perhaps”_ and the thought of Eggsy.

When he woke up the next morning, Eggsy was gone.

 *******

Eggsy was in recovery for a week, spending time with his family. It made sense, Harry knew. Obviously he needed leave after what had happened. He was honestly surprised that it hadn’t been for longer.

He returned looking marginally better and with a grin at Harry’s morning greeting. “Mum wants my employer to know that he might be the bloody king, but she’s gonna kill him if he puts me in danger again.”

“Noted by the Crown,” smiled Harry.

And then the dance started again with no mentions of what had passed between them. Harry might have wanted to kick something, but he drudged through the day with as much self-control as possible, skittish fingers the only telltale sign of his exasperation.

His constant focus on Eggsy was making him mad, he was sure. The way that he felt as though Eggsy was purposefully goading him, removing his jacket and stretching to show off the pull of his shirt against his chest, running his fingers over Harry’s when they were placed on a table, but never once looking at him.

They had tea together, as it was a relatively quiet day and Harry wanted to enjoy it in the garden. They sat down at a table by the lake, just the two of them, and Harry thought that this might be it. The chance to finally, _finally_ talk. Properly.

Eggsy bit into the scone with an exaggerated moan of pleasure, moving his index finger across his lips ever so slowly, flicking his tongue out to catch the remains of the taste.

He could have _sworn_ he was doing it on purpose, except Eggsy still wasn’t even looking at him and he mentally hit himself in the face with a bat, trying to stop himself from reading too much into everything the man did. This was ridiculous. He was going to take a shower before bed. And then possibly read a good book to distract himself. And then another shower when the book inevitably failed to work.

“I’m assuming that it’s good?” he said drily.

Eggsy nodded and took another bite, shutting his eyes and licking his lips again. “God Harry, could kiss you right now.” He opened his eyes and looked at him innocently.

Harry hid the beating of his heart beneath a smile. “Maybe later.”

What the hell, his brain grumbled.

You’re an idiot.

Yes. Thank you.

I need a long shower.

******* 

He walked into his room and immediately began to undress, jacket and tie removed and tossed into a corner. He was always being looked at with restrained distain by some of the higher ranking servants and reminded gently that he should put his clothes somewhere they could be found. Throwing things dramatically away was so much more satisfying though.

There was a knock on the door and he groaned and yelled “come in” in the most annoyed friendly tone of voice he could manage, before continuing with his shirt. Whoever it was would have to deal with it.

The door opened and Eggsy stepped in.

Harry stopped.

Eggsy looked at him, eyes widening. “Didn’t know I was interrupting…” His voice sounded… not exactly apologetic.

“It’s not your fault. At least you knocked this time.” Harry was stuck. He couldn’t begin to button his shirt again, but he was also standing with most of his chest on display. Eggsy had seen it before, it was just that… he felt vulnerable. Like this. Eggsy had been getting under his skin all day and now he was even baring it for him like an open invitation. “Why are you here?”

Eggsy closed the door behind him and started to walk towards him. He fought the urge to take a step back. Why was everything with this boy a challenge? “I wanted to…” he said. For some reason he was shaking slightly, voice breathless.

“Yes?” at least he sounded calmer than Eggsy. He even took step forward to meet him.

“I wanted to know why the fuck you’ve been ignoring me all day when I’ve been trying to get your attention.” Eggsy stopped in front of him.

“Is that what you were doing?” Harry succeeded in sounding only mildly curious. Eggsy was clearly infuriated.

“Yes.” He said. “I was.”

“So why are you here now?” Harry repeated. He wouldn’t be the one to break. He refused to be.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

Then again, he’d never been particularly patient. And he _had_ said maybe later. That was practically a promise to initiate things.

“Fuck it,” he said and finally kissed him. Despite the franticness of his mind, he was so gentle that their lips barely touched, just enough to feel the softness. Until Eggsy smirked triumphantly against his mouth, and pulled their bodies together with arms snaking around his waist.

Harry immediately responded to the touch with fingers running through Eggsy’s hair, tongue slipping between his lips and allowing him to walk them towards the bed, until he hit it with the backs of his knees and Eggsy pushed him backwards onto it.

He looked up at him, leaning on his elbows.

Eggsy was slowly removing his tie.

“Eggsy…”

“No, don’t you dare tell me to stop now Harry,” Eggsy said forcefully, dropping it beside him. “I’m fucking tired of saying that we have time.”

Harry nodded. “Me too.”

Eggsy slowly went down on his knees in front of him and began to remove his clothes, and Harry finally felt it, from the way his fingers brushed over his feet, to the nuzzle of his nose on his knee, to kisses on his thigh... felt the beginnings of remembrance.

His hands and his mouth were quick to begin the journey, straying over him with a newfound curiosity and an unrestrained eagerness. He clearly relished Harry’s cut off cries and moans, and went to work with abandon, but Harry stopped him before he could push him too far, pulling him up to the bed and beginning to return the favour that Eggsy had given him.

He started with the shirt, tasted his shoulders, skimmed over familiar hurts and lingered on new ones, placing them in his memory – he knew there would be many more lining his body that he had never seen before. He traced his tongue all the way down to the waistline of his trousers, and by then Eggsy was already panting, already murmuring under his breath, although Harry couldn’t hear what he had to say. He was looking forward to making Eggsy moan his words.

 

He took a long time to understand again exactly how he felt underneath him, how his skin and lips and tongue tasted, exactly how he sounded – which was different to how he remembered that he used to sound, just as enthusiastic, but far more soft in his endearments and far less willing to let Harry take control as often as he once had.

The confidence made him bold, made him adventurous in how far he could bring Harry before leading him back from the edge with gently soothing hums of “ _not yet.”_

Harry responded with a careful fierceness, aware that it had only been a week since he’d been hurt, but wanting to feel and take as much as possible, and – more than anything – to make Eggsy beg. It was the kind of game that was completely new to their relationship. In the past Eggsy had been utterly free with pleading for what he wanted, enjoyed it as much as Harry.

Now he responded with cut off expletives and smirks that in no way belied just how hard it was not to give in to everything that Harry wanted him to say. The challenge made the both of them even more enthusiastic and responsive to the other. For once they could be utterly selfish, because they could see in the eyes of the other that they both savoured the competition.

 

Harry traced his fingers over the delicate spiderwebs on Eggsy’s face and he shivered and shut his eyes, turning that side away from him. Harry kissed him on the other cheek and stopped moving his body.

“Can I…?” he asked.

Eggsy turned back slowly. “They don’t feel… they feel weird,” he mumbled.

Harry started at his jaw and slowly traced the outline of his face with his lips, before reaching the periphery of the scars. He placed a kiss there. He could feel Eggsy tensing, fingers digging into his back and shaking almost imperceptibly.

He continued upwards, feeling him with his mouth, up to the edges of his eyelid and around to his hairline. “They don’t feel weird,” he said against his skin.

Eggsy relaxed and laughed, pulling Harry’s lips in for another sloppy kiss, before cleverly flipping him on his back, so that he now straddled his hips. Harry almost swore, but didn't give Eggsy the satisfaction of seeing him lose it at the feel of him so gratifyingly shifting his seating position, slight enough that it might have been accidental. Harry knew that Eggsy was merely being a complete twat. 

Eggsy kissed him again and trailed down, smirking at the sound of Harry’s moans when his hands moved to stroke him so softly and teasingly that he almost couldn't feel his fingers. Eggsy pulled back up after lingering around his bellybutton for long enough to make Harry consider finally begging and nipped almost absentmindedly at his earlobe. Then he leaned and whispered: “I want to feel you in the morning… please.”

The please was petulant and filthy. Harry wasn’t sure if he’d won the competition. He didn’t care. Right now he’d do anything that Eggsy asked of him.

 

Eggsy was close to falling asleep beside him.

“Please don’t go,” whispered Harry. His turn to ask for something.

“Mmm,” mumbled Eggsy. “Gotta go soon… can’t be found here…”

“We should get you a room that’s next to mine.”

“Tha’sagoodidea,” smiled Eggsy sleepily. “Withadoor… leads in here…”

“I’ll wake you up in a few hours,” said Harry and held him for the rest of the night.

He couldn’t sleep anyway.


	17. Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this (and the previous chapter) were largely mixed about, rewritten, lengthened, and such and I'm very happy with how it all turned out (even if I'm a bit tired, because I cannot order my life properly and end up writing at ungodly hours in the morning). Have fun...

Roxy visited the house. She’d just come back from a long mission and wanted to stay with a friend, had covered up a bruise admirably, but Michelle could recognise its faint shadow beneath the powder.

“I’m afraid Eggsy’s not here yet,” she said. He’d be coming for dinner later.

Roxanne was a supremely gifted young woman, she thought, and she had thought for a while that she and Eggsy had been more than just friends, until her guessing had led her to an entirely different avenue. She hadn’t asked him, probably never would.

These days Roxy spent as much time with her as she did with her son. The two never talking about much in particular, but felt a strange sense of normality, as though the madness of their lives could rest when they were together. Just for a moment.

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

“I’d love one, Mrs Unwin.”

Michelle was about to correct her – it’s not Unwin, really. But it was. She’d had it beaten out of her for long enough that she forgot sometimes.

They sat together in companionable silence for a little bit, until Michelle could no longer hold her tongue.

“Can I ask a… question?”

Roxy nodded. “Of course.”

She hesitated for a moment…“ It’s just… You have a look about you. Can tell the look, and I’ve been wondering ever since I met you. You was in the war, right?

“Yes. Yes I was.” _Am._

“What did you do?”

Roxy smiled vaguely. “Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that.”

Michelle smiled as well at the secrecy of it all. She appreciated that Roxy’s job was a little like Eggsy’s, except that she travelled out of the country far more often, and she knew that it was a lot harder than either of them would ever let on. “I wanted to be a nurse, the first one. Go off to the front and help an’ all, but… I was afraid.”

“You had a son.”

“Not in the beginning. Wasn’t even planned. I guess if I had gone off I wouldn’t of had him at all, ‘cos I wouldn’t have been there when Lee came home on leave. And I woulda died then…” there was something that she suddenly needed to tell someone.

Roxy was silent, attentive.

“All of these things that’ve happened. My second marriage. I wouldn’t have my kids if I hadn’t been so afraid. If I’d done things right. They’re both much braver than I am. Finally getting what they deserve too. I keep thinking you might have a little something to do with that…”

Her sad eyes sparked a little with a deep inner warmth that Roxy recognised.

“I’m just a colleague. And friend.”

Michelle didn’t ask. Secrecy. “Well. Thank you all the same. For being his friend. I never… there are so many people I wanna thank. I wanted to thank that nurse. He told me about her, she stopped him from dying when he thought he wanted to. She saved his life.”

“I’m sure that she knows,” smiled Roxy. “You’ve been very brave.”

“Not as brave as you,” countered Michelle. “I’m not exactly… that good. At taking care of things. I’m better now, than I was. Had a lot of strange help on the way, but you take what you get.” She shook her head to clear her messy thoughts away. “I’m sorry Rox, I didn’t mean to pry or share so much…”

Roxy shrugged. “I don’t mind. Most people either think I’m made of stone to get this far, or that I’m one chipped nail from crying…” she thought for second. “Actually, I do hate chipping my nails.”

Michelle laughed.

Just then the door opened and a little girl rushed in.

 *******

It was a late evening when Eggsy opened the door adjoining their rooms and shuffled in with his hands behind his back.

Harry was already in his pyjamas, and had sat himself in his favourite chair with a book. He looked up and smiled fondly at him.

“I didn’t know if you wanted to come in today,” he said. “You seemed preoccupied.”

“I… was.” Eggsy hesitated and then revealed a bunch of creased and folded papers that he put on Harry’s desk. He smoothed them over and fidgeted. Then he decided to simply get on with it. “I wrote a bunch of letters for you while I was in training. Thought you… might wanna have them. Or…”

On second thoughts, an absolutely terrible idea.

Harry closed his book and stood. “I’d love to have them. I still have all of them, from before.” They hadn’t spoken of the war yet. Harry felt that this part of the subject was safe enough.

Eggsy smiled sadly. “I… lost mine. When I was captured. I don’t know what happened to them. I’m sorry.”

“It’s perfectly fine. I’m amazed you kept them for so long.”

“Course I did,” said Eggsy, defending them, although he knew that Harry was joking. Somehow he felt that they needed to be defended. “They kept me going… I mean, they were drivel, but they made me happy.” Maybe not too heavily though.

Harry snorted. “Why thank you. You are of course a poetic genius.”

“I fucking am,” said Eggsy, offended, taking a few steps towards Harry.

“I beg to differ, I have a whole collection of writings to prove my point.” Harry spoke drily and seriously, and although Eggsy knew that he was secretly having him on, he couldn’t quite stop himself from being provoked.

“Well maybe you don’t want the rest.”

“Oh no. You promised to give them to me. I’m afraid I’m going to have to hold you to that promise.” Now Harry was smirking. Smug bastard.

“Then tell me I’m a genius,” he said, ignoring his childish poutiness. Harry eyed the papers on the desk. And looked back at Eggy, who stubbornly folded his arms.

“Fine,” he said.

“What?”

Harry walked over to him and wound his arms around his hips. “You are…” he kissed his cheek. “A completely wonderful…” another kiss on the side of his jaw. “Idiotic…” the top of his ear. Drew his lips back to his mouth, which was trying hard not to grin. “Genius.”

Eggsy kissed him. Languorously, messily, not exactly caring much about whether he was sucking at his tongue, chewing his lips, licking the edges of his dimples. Harry let him have his way, although he rolled his eyes and countered by pushing him against the desk and lifting him onto it.

Eggsy took that as an invitation to spread his legs and pull him closer, but Harry broke suddenly from his shameless exploration of his tonsils and picked up the papers behind him. Eggsy scowled.

“You cheated. You dirty manipulating bastard.”

Harry kissed him again and he smiled into it and wrapped his legs around him.

“My writing is _not_ drivel,” muttered Harry.

 

He read them later, when Eggsy was already asleep. One per day.

The warmth of Eggsy beside him, the faint sounds of his breathing and the slight rise and fall of his back accompanied the rhythm of the writing perfectly.

Harry felt content.

*******

They stole tiny moments during the day, perhaps a little brazen in their lack of subtlety. Roxy might have grumbled a few times, and Merlin’s eye might have twitched while he tried very hard to _calmly_ explain to them why discretion was needed.

He might as well have been speaking to two very amorous brick walls.

 

Until one day Eggsy stayed in Harry's room into the late morning, spending the entirety of it not wearing any of their clothes. It was one of those days where none of them would be busy until noon and they were misusing it by doing nothing in particular and not leaving the bed.

They both heard the door handle turning and Eggsy threw himself under the bed. His clothes littered the floor, but there was nothing to do about that.

Upon seeing that the king was still in bed, the maid squeaked and dropped the clothes that she had been carrying, before bending down to pick them up. Harry continued to assure her that it really was no trouble at all, but perhaps a knock next time?

She was new apparently, and had simply been told to go through all the rooms and the one next door was empty so she’d assumed that he’d left with his guard and she shouldn’t have, she was really terribly sorry, she babbled while she picked up the clothes again and hurried out, bright red in the face.

Eggsy immediately rolled out from under the bed and began to pick up his things. “Maybe time to go,” he said, laughing a bit.

Harry sighed dramatically. “Perhaps it’s time to get ready.”

And then the door opened again and the maid returned for a sock that she had forgotten.

Eggsy stood with his clothes slung over one arm, hair mussed and shoes awkwardly held in front of him, covering anything that might cause her to scream.

She might anyway, he figured.

The maid looked from the king in the bed to the naked man standing frozen in his room. Then she erased it from her professional brain. “D’you want breakfast in bed tomorrow sir?”

Harry didn’t bat an eye. “That would be lovely. If you would be so good as to knock when you bring it in.”

The maid picked up the sock, curtsied, and left.

Eggsy was blushing heavily. “You should give her a raise,” he said.

“She seems a very perceptive girl,” admitted Harry.

 

From then on she brought the two of them breakfast most days, and occasionally lunch and dinner as well, helping out in little ways when they wanted to be alone. One day Eggsy invited her to come and visit his mother for a thank you lunch and she ended up spending an enjoyable day with all three of the Unwins and Roxy.

She spent the night with Roxy.

******* 

The sitting with Chester King was officially about the upcoming meeting with the American president. They would be carefully dancing around Britain’s involvement in the troubles with the communists. Not to mention the current discussion about the independence of India and Pakistan, which, according to Harry, was already in motion, even though several people had tried to talk him into attempting to change their minds.

His adviser observed him with the kind of look that suggested to Harry that he knew exactly what this talk would be about.

“People do wonder,” said Chester King.

“What about?” Harry very much refused to rise to the bait. He hated it when the man sounded like a nightmarish version of his least favourite governess and it made him feel very petty.

“You know what about. He’s on the cheap headlines. He doesn’t belong here.”

Harry bristled. “Are you complaining about my hiring practices now? I doubt that they’re that relevant to our upcoming meeting."

Chester King ignored his attempt at getting back on subject. “I said nothing about hiring him. What I’m saying is that you’re being selfish.”

“Why is that?” Harry’s curiosity was pleasant enough to be dripping poison.

“You should have tried to produce an heir years ago,” answered Chester King bluntly.

Harry was tired. This was a conversation that he had had many times before. It had graced many a newspaper, gossip rag, and ambitious duchess. “I already have an heir. Her name is Elizabeth.”

“It’s not… right. People talk.”

Yes, people talked. He knew this. It was what had fucked things up so royally in the past. “People always talk. As long as that’s all they do, then with all due respect, I couldn’t give a fuck.”

“The boy’s a liability. He’s unnecessary.” He didn’t even try to be amiably British in his accusations, the implication that he wished that Eggsy had died in the war - just like any half-decent soldier with a bullet wound to the head had - was clear.

The air grew cold enough to make a lesser man shiver. Chester King didn’t shiver.

Harry no longer cared. “I don’t think that he’s a liability. I think that you’re an elitist snob. And I think that you’re no longer needed as my counsellor.”

“When your father was alive – “ he almost snarled.

“But he isn’t alive. Thank God. And it’s beside the point. I’m perfectly happy to fire you right now if you say another word on the matter.”

The problem lay in shutting the man up, should it come so far.

Chester King opened his mouth. “I’ve been in your service for forty-six years.”

“Yes, and things have changed since you were first employed. I’m afraid that moving with the times remains an entirely foreign concept to you.”

He would have to give him a second chance. Possibly a hundred chances more. The man was old, surely he wouldn’t be alive for much longer.

“You’re making a mistake.”

“In that case, it’s a mistake I’m quite happy to make.” He stood. “Goodnight. I expect you’ll see yourself out.”

They both attempted to murder the other with their eyes. When that didn’t work, Chester King tried to continue the argument, eyebrows raised in angry defiance. Harry gave him a silent ultimatum and after ten seconds, he raised his glass.

“To mistakes then.” He downed the whole thing in one go.

As Harry left, he poured himself another one.

 *******

They danced at a debutante party. It would have been scandalous, but the papers were rather too fond of both the king and his knight to want to accuse them of anything suggestive. Besides, Eggsy danced with every young debutante and several of the younger men as well. He even danced with the former prime minister, winking boldly at Churchill when he thanked him afterwards.

Dancing with the king, however, made everybody’s hearts stand still, although nobody could say exactly why. They were both excellent of course, but so were many of the others. Perhaps it was the ease with which they fitted in each others arms, or maybe the cavalier way in which the young man stole the lead halfway through and the king’s only response was to roll his eyes as though he was used to it.

Nobody presumed. Those that might have done in any other circumstance either didn’t quite dare, or didn’t care. Besides, to judge anybody on whom they danced with would have ruined it.

And it was a very lovely dance.

*******

Every so once in a while, things would be bad.

Eggsy was not only directly employed by him, but also a Kingsman, and while he was far too public a figure to be a spy, he _was_ an excellent distraction. He would be sent out on official delegations that were secretly intel-missions, assassinations, placements of double agents. He did his job perfectly – the mix of natural charm, Kingsman training, and national popularity making him a sought after dinner guest, conversation point, and seduction target.

He was rather an expert. Even Arthur – who had severely doubted his skills upon first observing his candidacy and only reluctantly allowed Lancelot’s choice to even try out – admitted that he was the perfect diversion for any suspicious objective.

Harry reminded himself not to get jealous whenever Eggsy would tell him of especially forward hosts, half-removed clothing, and drunken attempts at kisses. Nothing that happened had anything to do with their relationship. And Eggsy would never let anything happen. He told himself that.

A few times Eggsy had been required to step in and assist in situations. He did whatever was necessary, and he killed three more people within a few months.

The ordeals made him build up walls of emotional distance that it would take weeks to strip down again, if Harry ever truly succeeded. He didn't know. Every layer would make Harry wonder if he’d made the right choice in turning him towards this life. Never entirely sure what had caused him to shoot himself a few years ago, and if something might not trigger that darkness again.

He was always terrified when Eggsy left him.

 

“I’m going to France,” grinned Eggsy. Then he grumbled: “Been trying to learn French. I’m shit.”

“I’m sure it’ll be good enough to charm anybody in a ten mile radius,” said Harry. He tried to smile, but only managed to seem slightly annoyed.

Eggsy’s face fell. “What?”

Harry didn’t want to tell him. Distracting him now was unprofessional, and unfair. He looked away instead. “I’m being stupid,” he said.

“About?” Eggsy was not about to let this go.

“I… get jealous.” That was technically not a lie.

Eggsy smiled, almost relieved, and leaned against him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. He placed a gentle kiss just below his ear and whispered: “Quand je retourne... je veux juste te faire Plaisir…” he pulled back again. “At least I think that’s right.”

Harry kissed him before he could overthink his French too much.

 

He returned from the mission and immediately received two weeks leave. Merlin wouldn’t tell Harry what had happened.

When Eggsy came back he stayed away from Harry beyond what was absolutely necessary and locked the door to his room.

After a week Harry managed to pull him aside and ask him to talk again. “You don’t have to say anything that you don’t want to, but I…” was he being selfish? “I miss you,” he said.

It was all they managed before they had to continue with the day.

That night Eggsy crawled into bed with him and tried to sleep. When he couldn’t, Harry stayed up all night and read aloud from his book, until the yawning had Eggsy removing it from him and insisting that he sleep. “You actually have work tomorrow,” he smiled. “I just have to follow some daft king around. Not exactly hard.”

Harry fell asleep to his smile.

 

The following evening the two sat opposite each other, both in pyjamas and Harry wrapped in his red dressing gown. He was reading the paper, when Eggsy cleared his throat awkwardly.

Harry looked up immediately, and folded it, putting it aside.

Eggsy tried to breathe and started… “I, uhm… I. You know that something happened. I wanted to wait until I was far enough away from it to talk to you, but I realised that ain’t gonna happen. I’m, huh –“ he was trying not to cry. “I was meant to, shit, I can’t tell you everything… - I had to spend time with a man, an… important man, he, uh…”

Harry stood up and knelt before him, placing his hands on his knees. He didn’t say anything, but the question was there. Did he hurt you?

Eggsy shook his head. “He didn’t. He tried to… to… I stabbed him. I compromised the entire mission, I almost got Percival killed, because I panicked. And I killed somebody crucial to the operation.” He wasn’t done yet, Harry could hear and allowed him a few moments to catch his breath again. “I don’t know if I deserve to be here, Harry. Merlin says that the safety of the agent comes first, but I could’ve handled it…”

“Is this because of what I said?” he asked. Maybe the truth would have been better after all.

Eggsy shook his head. “He hit me,” he said bluntly, and his nerves and fear were replaced with anger. “I don’t know what he expected. That his status would protect him? Or that my job title was some kind of… trick.”

“He called you a prostitute?” Harry frowned.

“Not in so many syllables. I’m fine Harry,” he assured him. “I’m better now. I just… remembered some things. I stabbed him in the neck.” He seemed to be musing on that particular detail for a disturbingly long time.

“I would’ve slept with him Harry,” he finally said. “I was going to. Until he said that. And did that to me… I’m just… I'm really _angry._ All the fucking time. And I don’t know what’s going to make me hurt someone, or myself. I… “ the anger had faded again into shame. He started to sob, trying to keep it in check. “I’m not better, Harry. I keep thinking I’m better and then I go and do something like this, and everything I’m _thinking_ all the time… I can’t focus. I would’ve fucked him and it would’ve hurt you and I would’ve done it anyway.”

He buried his head in his hands. Harry sat up and held onto him until the sobbing had subsided, shushing him and assuring him that everything was okay. At least, between them, everything was okay.

 *******

Not so long afterwards they were in the countryside. Eggsy was delicately skimming the keys of a grand that Harry had bought and had placed there for him. He’d asked him a few times to play at polite society, but Eggsy had declined, pleasantly but firmly. It wasn’t anything that he wanted to do for anybody that he didn’t feel deserved it.

They had spent an entire day outside, strolling around a lake until Eggsy had winked at him, removed all his clothes and jumped in. Harry had followed him and they hadn’t managed to walk much further.

After dinner Eggy had played for him. It was the first time since before 1940.

He hadn’t been playing for the last ten minutes, however, merely touching it contemplatively.

“I thought we might talk,” said Eggsy, finally. “I know you wanted to. About why I shot myself.”

It was so sudden, and Harry didn’t know what to say. Had Eggsy known this entire time that he was afraid of what he might do someday, of never knowing for sure why he had wanted to do it in the first place? “Do you want to?”

“I want to make sure that you never… have to wonder. I know you look at me sometimes, and I know I sometimes do things because I’m not completely... better. Ever. And I think that your imagination has gotta be much worse than everything.” Eggsy looked shamefaced. As though it was his fault.

“I don’t have to know.”

Eggsy struggled to find the right explanation. “If you don’t hear it there’ll just be a hole, like the two of us didn’t exist for over five years. I want to know that I existed.” He shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense, but I felt… still feel it sometimes… like I stopped being alive. Or like everyone outside had died. It’s important.” His voice was pleading, and Harry pulled him to the sofa, where he soothingly held onto his arms.

“I know it’s important. And you can stop whenever you want to. I won’t be going anywhere. We can always pick it up again, or you can decide that you don’t want to tell me anymore.”

Harry tried not to show how much he desperately wanted to know. How he’d been wanting to know for so long…

Eggsy nodded. And began… “I woke up in a German field hospital…”

 

He spoke for five hours, almost in a frenzy, until eventually his voice grew hoarse and he shook too badly to continue.

“I’m tired now, Harry.”

He nodded and brought him to bed, letting him press close against him and cradling him in his arms. "Goodnight, my darling boy," he murmured, but Eggsy was already asleep. He watched over him as he slept in case he might have a nightmare and held his hand until the birds started to sing and he dozed off.

Eggsy woke up not long after. He felt rested and calm, although he frowned at the lines of exhaustion that told him that Harry had not fallen asleep for a long time after him.

He snuggled in closer and shut his eyes again.

“Yours,” he mumbled, remembering a promise from long ago. 

He waited for Harry to wake up.

*******

Two gentlemen walked down a street, arms brushing with every step. The two of them were hardly the anonymous faces that their ideal daydreams might have made them out to be, but they walked together.

One of them was a young man, confident and charming, if a little tired. The other was older, relaxed, utterly carefree for the moment.

For a few seconds their hands entwined and they looked at each other as though the world around them no longer existed. Then they continued to walk, chattering about indistinct subjects.

Just an ordinary walk, taken by two friends. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left. Am emotions. Emotions in a puddle.


	18. Letters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been two seconds from just writing down the lyrics for all the songs I’ve been listening to on repeat while writing this, because they sound exactly like what Harry would write in his letters. But I didn’t. Because Harry is not a member of the excellent band The Calling, and nor has he covered any of their songs (notably Charlene Soraia’s cover).
> 
> The playlist for this fic is pretty awesome and it's been stuck in my head for the past month.
> 
> Also I'm paranoid that I somehow forgot something. Do let me know if I did.

_My boy_

_It has been precisely one year since we last saw one another. I visited the house and all the locations around it where we used to do things together and made a note of everything that I could remember from each place. You probably think that I sound somewhat ridiculous, but it does seem particularly melancholy without you, today of all days._

_I don’t know whether you wish to hear much about home, I would not want you to miss it too much. I will simply tell you how dreary it all is, and rainy. Shall I tell you about the rain?_

_Yesterday it rained on and off for several hours, before finally settling into a dull drizzle. There was a stifling fog about the place, and the air was humid. One could barely see an inch before one’s own nose and it felt rather like a Victorian gothic, but without the mystery and romance and with far more sweat and chilliness. How much do you miss England now?_

_I shall continue then. For the last month it has been wet and cold. The few days in which the sun managed to break through, it was feeble and I asked myself whether it really need bother at all. It merely highlighted just how bleak it all looked and it made me annoyed. If the sun didn’t want to light up our beautiful shores, then why remind us of all that we’re missing by not being Southern Italians._

_We did have one very glorious day only a week ago, but it has led me to believe that despite our avid hatred of the cold, we hate hot weather far more. At least one is allowed to complain about cold weather without anybody tutting and attempting to make you take walks outside. There were mosquitoes everywhere. Dratted things. And the sweating was even worse. Not to mention the constant glare and the headaches. None if it was quite as bad as the sunburn though. I am fairly certain that the British were never meant to leave their dusty libraries and ominous cellars, and yet we try every time there is a tiny cessation in the rain._

_I sincerely hope that this description of things won’t make you homesick. I know that one becomes so used to this tedious weather that, once abroad, one convinces oneself that it isn’t all that bad and cannot wait to return to our self-inflicted torment._

_After all, if we did not love it a little, then why do we insist on staying?_

_I am trying very hard to impress upon you that you probably needn’t return home at all, because if you do you will yet again become spellbound by whatever shit that the English weather has in store for us and you will truly be beyond saving. Perhaps you might want to return for other reasons, and I could certainly argue that the climate is not the only thing that this country has to offer._

_I hope that the days look brighter from where you are. I know that you are a rare breed of British who actually enjoys the outside – the only one who can drag me out and make_ me _enjoy it._ _When you return we can go for as many walks as you want. As long as you're not being unreasonable about it. I refuse to actually live in the woods._

_I sincerely hope that it will not be another year until our next meeting. The dreariness was never as dreary when you were here._

_With love_

*******

Harry lit a cigarette. Eggsy scowled at him. “They ain’t good for your bloody lungs.”

“They’re good for my nerves.”

“Thought I was good for your nerves,” smiled Eggsy. Outside the rain pattered against the window, promising to become far heavier in the near future.

“I can hardly put you in my mouth at all hours of the day,” said Harry and took a particularly long drag.

Eggsy laughed. “Wouldn’t say I’d mind too much.” He was worried all the same. The doctor had counselled that Harry stop altogether, and while he’d certainly cut down, he still smoked on stressful days. Eggsy suspected that he did it a lot more when he wasn’t at home to be irritated at him. It wasn’t so much an argument anymore as it was a judgmental look whenever he started another one.

They stood in silence until Harry had finished and then Eggsy motioned with his head. “Time to go? You’re late already.”

Harry looked annoyed. “We could just stay here?”

“I’d probably be accused of kidnap and treason. Rather not risk it,” smiled Eggsy.

“If you’re so fond of my family, why don’t you just visit them?” Harry was being petulant on purpose. It helped to be annoying if you were annoyed.

“As much as I love Elizabeth and Margaret, I think they invited you.”

“Your name’s written on there as well,” grumbled Harry. “And it’s not them that I’m dreading.”

“Next time we can visit my family,” suggested Eggsy. “You’ve never met my mother or my sister. Think it’s only fair.”

Harry thought back to a London Hospital, when Eggsy had still been missing. “I shook her hand once,” he said, almost to himself. “During the war. I was visiting hospitals.”

Eggsy was surprised. “You never told me. Now we definitely need to have dinner with her, she’s gonna think you’re being rude otherwise. Probably been planning dinner ever since I told her that I was with the king.”

Harry smiled and leaned in towards him. “I love you,” he said, their lips touching.

Eggsy grinned. “Does that mean yes?”

He pulled him closer, but still didn’t kiss him. “Whatever you want. My boy.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Eggsy slowly started to draw his teeth over Harry’s lower lip, nibbling and tasting it. “Yours.” He stopped and looked up at him. “Love you too,” he beamed, and kissed him properly.

Then they went to find an umbrella. The torrent outside was looking to be truly masterful and the single umbrella meant that they had an excuse to stand very close to one another.

“I love the rain,” said Harry.

Eggsy nodded in agreement.

*******

_My dear, you really should see a movie when you have time. I feel as though it was rather remiss of me to not have forced you to see one when you were still here. It isn’t like the opera or the theatre, it is a different kind of mastery. I have spoken to you of this before, but you didn’t really listen. Now that you have time to read these words, I am going to give you all the compelling reasons for why you really do want to see one._

_To start off, you tried to claim that you didn’t like theatre before I made you see a play and you were instantly enticed. I know that you’re very fond of your own opinions, despite having nothing to shape them on, but if you enjoyed the theatre I think you will enjoy these even more. They are actually far closer to your tastes than to mine._

_Secondly they are masterful – from their initiation to how far they have come in so few years. Considering what they can convince you is real now, I only believe that they will become even more interesting in the future. They have, after all, already progressed into talkies, what more can one imagine that they could achieve?_

_Thirdly I want to talk to you about them. I cannot do that if you refuse to watch them._

*******

“One time I was in a giant field with nothing. Jus’ grass and far away somewhere was ocean, cos you could smell it and I read one of your letters there. Never thought I liked the ocean before that time. ‘Cos the only other times I’d experienced the sea was when we were at landing points and it just reminded me of fighting. That was the time you talked about… ah, shit I don’t remember. Would’ve remembered, if I’d had the letters… I just sometimes can’t remember the right order. But I remember the day.”

“Maybe they’ll be recovered,” said Harry.

“Nah some fat-headed German tosser threw em in the fire, I bet. It’s alright. Worse things than losing letters. I remember now, it was something about movies – I’d already watched a couple by then, but I never told you … Anyway that’s not the point… I’m telling you we have to go to that field, it was perfect. Think it was the most perfect moment we had and there was this breeze that blew the smell of the sea to us, I swear it was England waving at us, telling us we were nuts for going off like that. That was a good place.”

All his stories ended like that. Without any story. Just a description of things he had seen. He refrained as much as possible from mentioning anything that involved the actual war anymore, although he often referenced the men who’d been with him. Berkely, Hughes, Ward, and _that dick Charlie_ mostly, and loved to talk about the times that he was with the nurses and the fighting women, because whenever they were around the world appeared a little safer.

“I dunno, maybe they just seemed strong so it helped us, you know. And, yeah, they were pretty. I mean, most people are pretty but the men were mostly covered in mud. Women see a lot of shit in war that we don’t even know to think about. And Carmilla gave me chocolate, can you fucking believe?”

“I can,” smiled Harry.

“Good, now where was we going again? I can hardly protect you when you won’t tell me where we’re going.”

“It’s a surprise,” he said. “It’s something you wrote to me about, once. If that’s any hint.”

“I hate surprises,” grumbled Eggsy.

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.” Eggsy slapped him on the arm. Harry raised an amused eyebrow.

“I don’t think harming the king is in your job description.”

“Thought you liked a bit of rough,” smirked Eggsy.

 

 He loved the seaside.

They watched the sun go down over the waves and Harry took a picture of him lying naked in the sand, and with a wide smile on his face that crinkled around the eyes. Harry saved the picture for himself so that he would never forget the moment.

 *******

_I miss you very much. I hope that you can forgive me for being so sentimental in over half of my writing, but you’re the only outlet for sentimentality that I have right now. It would be easier if I could make decisions with you next to me, and if the fighting was over. I don't imagine much for the future, only that we can go back to the things that we once had. Not seeing you often was better than not seeing you at all._

_I always hated leaving you so much that I imagined that we were feeling the loss equally, but the moment you were gone I realised that getting left behind is so much worse._

_I am sorry for being despondent, my dear. I received some rather bad news and it made me miss you terribly. I always miss you, but today it’s so much that I feel as though I am one rash decision from rushing out to find you, wherever you are._

_I would_ _rather not leave you again, in the future. I would rather that you found someone else who didn’t have to leave you. If you did, I would at least know that you were happy. I would rather that you left me than I left you._

_I don’t want to disappoint you again._

_I wish you were here._

*******

Eggsy appeared to have fallen asleep. His chest rose and fell calmly, and he let out a soft sigh at every exhale. Harry’s arm was feeling uncomfortable where it lay lodged beneath his side and curled over his head, but he continued to stroke his hair gently.

The piano stood open where he had let his hands fly over the keys, like so many birds far off on the horizon. The song had been lighter than anything that Eggsy had brought back from the war. Those had been beautiful, maybe, but vicious and full of discord. Terrifying was the word that Harry might use.

Over time they had become peaceful, and quiet, and a little sad.

Harry hummed the tune as well as he could, and as quietly as he could, trying to keep it in his mind.

“Harry,” Eggsy’s voice was low enough to be a breath.

“Yes darling?”

“You’re going to leave again soon…”

Harry wondered whether he was asleep after all and was merely dreaming of him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Don’t leave…”

“I’m not going to. I promise.”

“Yours,” murmured Eggsy and after that he didn’t speak again, but lay there, curled into Harry like an old memory, as though he was a blanket keeping his dreams safe.

 *******

_I have been thinking about the things that we have done together. The good and the bad. Mostly the good. And there has been a lot of good, dearest. Far more than the bad, even with these years apart._

_I do not know what will happen in the future, if we will make it or if something will irreparably part us. I don’t think so though. Even if I am only allowed to see you once more in my life, I will consider us as being together until the end. If you think differently, then I will at least have all the memories of all that we have done together._ _Mostly the good._

_I hope and believe that there will be more memories to make, after this tiny, inconvenient war has been overcome._

_I am excited for all the things that will happen. The good and the bad._

*******

Three years after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II a set of letters written to a British soldier, dating through the first few war years, were found in a German attic and put on auction in London as a part of the war memoirs collection. They bore the signatures of a lover writing to their beloved, “my darlings” and “my dearests” planted across every one.

A single one was different, more crinkled and read through and folded and refolded than any of the others. It simply bore the endearment of “my boy,” in the top left corner, followed by a lengthy and depressing description of the English weather.

It read like a promise... of... something. Or a strange love story.

When Eggsy held them all again, he ran his fingers over those two words, gently and repeatedly.

"Yours."

_~ Fin ~_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline (spanning 19 years)  
> 1936 – Harry and Eggsy meet  
> 1938 – Harry is crowned king  
> 1939 – War is declared  
> 1940 – Eggsy leaves to become a soldier  
> 1941 – Harry writes the letter that Eggsy reads the most  
> 1943\. Sep – Italy surrenders to the allied forces  
> 1943 Nov.14 – Eggsy engages at the battle of Leros (at the time the Dodecanese islands were Italian-held, and it was thought that they could be used as bases from which to engage the German-held Balkans)  
> 1943 Nov.16 – Eggsy is shot and captured at the battle of Leros. His letters are saved due to a lucky incident involving an avid historian and a German soldier who kept them with the intention of always giving them back (but that’s another story)  
> 1943 – Eggsy is sent to a POW camp in Serbia. Roxy is tasked with finding out if he’s still alive  
> 1944 – Michelle receives a new job, sells her old home, and moves to London  
> 1944, June – Harry meets Eggsy’s mother  
> 1944, June 16 – The king visits the Normandy beaches  
> 1944, June - After the events of D-day, the camp is dismantled and the POWs are sent temporarily to a nearby concentration work-camp  
> 1944, Sep. – the POWs and prisoners are sent from Serbia to the Czech Republic. Eggsy spends the remainder of the war there  
> 1945, May. 8 – V-Day. The war ends. The camp is liberated. Eggsy returns to England. A few days later Roxy saves his life  
> 1945, Early April – Harry and Eggsy meet again. Eggsy stays in hospital for a month  
> Late 1945 – Roxy offers Eggsy to join Kingsman  
> Mid 1946 – Eggsy becomes a Kingsman and starts to work for the king. There follows a while of awkward pining  
> Late 1946 – Eggsy and Harry finally sort out most of their shit. It only took them ten years from when they first met  
> 1947 – Harry tries very hard to be a good king. Since his reign is modelled after George VI’s, I think it’s safe to assume that he does a pretty good job  
> 1948 – Eggsy finally shows Harry some of the letters he wrote  
> 1950 – Harry’s health starts to deteriorate due to heavy smoking (this is in correlation with history. George VI smoked heavily and developed several severe illnesses – I have dialed down on whether or not it’s as bad for Harry as it was for George, but I headcanon not. Because I want a bit of happiness. This means that his lung was not removed due to cancer in 1951). His duties are extensively carried out by his cousin, Elizabeth II  
> 1952, Feb 6 – In one version of this timeline, Harry dies at the age of 56. On the other hand, I'm sentimental and brought him back to life to be mentioned in the continuation of this - Harry moves to the countryside with Eggsy, who quits Kingsman  
> 1952, Feb 20th - Merlin is shot and goes missing  
> 1955 – The letters are returned to their rightful owner  
> 1960 - Roxy's story begins. She is thirty-nine, and Eggsy is forty-three
> 
> I don't think there's anything I missed. Thank you very much for reading and I hope you had a good time. I am dilligently writing that next piece! Spies! Conspiracies! Aggressive usage of Tinker Tailor trivia! All good things!


End file.
